This poem you need to read. It was twittered a few days ago:
Our Generation (by Jordan Nichols)
Our generation will be known for nothing.
Never will anybody say,
We were the peak of mankind.
That is wrong, the truth is
Our generation was a failure.
Thinking that
We actually succeeded
Is a waste. And we know
Living only for money and power
Is the way to go.
Being loving, respectful, and kind
Is a dumb thing to do.
Forgetting about that time,
Will not be easy, but we will try.
Changing our world for the better
Is something we never did.
Giving up
Was how we handled our problems.
Working hard
Was a joke.
We knew that
People thought we couldn’t come back
That might be true,
Unless we turn things around
(Now, read the poem again – only backwards)
Jordan Nichols is not a famous poet, he even didn’t finish school or has any markable experience in life. Jordan is a Fourteener! His older brother has put this poem online. After 24 hours this poem attracted more than 100.000 retweets!
Almost everyone of us used to be a Fourteener. A fourteener is a young creative person, who has not yet passed the age of 14 years. Actually I have invented this category. But probably we as adults would not take too serious what 14 years old teenies say, demand, paint or create, right? Here I present eight Fourteeners, who inspired me a lot. Jordan Nichols made the start. He actually still is 14 years old, but most of the following today are no teenagers anymore. But look at what they did, say and created, when they were fourteen or younger.
When I first saw Lilli Fichtner – a skinny redhair – singing at a live concert in an old trainstation at the Südegelände Park in Berlin, I was so deeply impressed. She was 15 years old, but she wrote the songs at the age of 13 and 14. She really remained being a girl, not a young woman. not a lolita, she is the innocence in person. She sings, composes and plays the piano on her own. She sings about love in a way that I wonder, how she can describe all these feelings. „I never had a boyfriend“ she conceded. Actually the songs were about a best friend kind of love. She dedicated the love songs to her BFF. When I google her name today – six years later – I am so happy to see that she has gone her way. The BiLD writes, that Lilli Fichtner is one of the top actresses that will rule our theatres in 2020. Wow! So here weg go:
1. Jordan Nichols, an ordinary child who writes poems
(http://www.viralnova.com/14-year-old-twitter-poem/)
2. Lilli Fichtner, a german actress and singer/Songwriter
3. Stijn Oom, a Lego artist
http://lego.gizmodo.com/5950663/this-14-year-old-kid-is-a-lego-genius
4. Akiane Kramarik, painter.
Look at the way she paints eyes. She is very spiritual and speaks a lot about god, although her parents weren’t religious at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49wut32Cguw
5. Thessaloniki Arzu-Embry, prodigy student
The girl, who never went to school (homeschooling education), studies psychology and dreams of opening a practice with her mother and 17 year old brother. She finshed her college at the age of 14!
http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20130715/news/707159928/
6. Severn Cullis-Suzuki, environmental activist
Her speech at the UN in 1992 has inspired more then 20 million people! Still today (as a 34 years old) she is active in the environmental organisations and throws light at water problems and global environmental issues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQmz6Rbpnu0
The seventh person says things like „I have the right for education, I have the right to play“. The pakistani girl is a shining figure, literally a wonder. She was shot in the head by the Taliban and survived. Her name is Malala, and she fights for women’s rights and education:
7. Malala Yousafzai, human rights activist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-gRi635a6U
Last but not least:
8. Anne Frank, ordinary dutch girl assassined at the World War II.
Author of the world famous Anne Frank diary. I have read her diary when I was 14. At this age she finished the last pages, before she died. She inspired me so much.
A lot of journalists have written about the magic 27 (when Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse and a lot of famous musicians died – most of them comitted suicide), but almost nobody writes about the magic 14. Actually it could also be 12 or 13. Around the age of 14, people change tremendously. Our voice get darker, we start to rebel, and the most important potential is: We start to ask very insistantly. And we still believe truly in something. This is the age, when children turn into grown ups, this is when they hit the top of their puberty. It’s the age when our sense of justice is very sensitive. Possibly we will never be more sensitive after then. The motor to change the world lies in this age. When people cross the 14 years, the basic world outlook is set. The fundamental basis will not change anymore after that age, I presume. When I was at the age of 14, I joined the „No Blood for Oil“ demo in Berlin, the first Iraq war. And I started to paint graffiti. I was so full of idealism. Some of it remains still today but honestly I have to justify too often the way I act and think. When I help others or try hard to change the world, I often pretend making it just for fun or for a project or for economic reasons to enrich my CV. But the truth is: I really would like to change the world. In german we have a cuss word for those kind of people: Gutmensch – literally a good human. Actually this is nothing bad, but this term has become a defamation for people, who have lost their sense of reality or dreamers or simply stupid naive persons. As an architect or journalist it’s not good to say in public that you want to help changing the world. This is super dubious. But I can’t help it. I still believe that this is something we need to do.