Letter to a Generation Lost – Gen Z reconnecting to the local community

The Left has captured the world, not just in reality, but in spirit. It holds on to a postmodern way of life, replacing God with the Self, and it’s warping the very ideals of our country. The recent national election is a good sign that things are about to change. For so long it felt as if fighting back would be terrifying in scope and difficulty. Luckily, the answer was not an Earth-shattering revelation or a massive policy win. After President Trump’s victory, the answer is clear. It’s hundreds of thousands of people in this country using their vote to take the first step back to common sense. With an upcoming special election in Virginia, we have a chance to show that it’s not just the first step that matters, but the one that follows.

This cultural realignment is starting to affect my own age group, Gen Z. As the first generation to grow up with smartphones and the Internet, it feels as if many of us are starting to realize just how damaging that was. We were the first to live in virtual worlds and social media fantasies. Now there’s a yearning for something real, something everlasting. I was no different.

For three years I lived in dorms at Cornell University, in the very heart of liberalism, a factory for corporate shells, destined to “the biggest and best” consulting and finance firms, the world at my fingertips. I had never been more miserable. I searched for answers, wrestling with Nietzsche and Camus, clinging to postmodern self-help books and adopted a borderline left-wing ideology, hopped up on therapy and antidepressants. I tried every option this New World offered. Yet every one of them failed me.

It all changed after a conversation with my therapist. “You are the center of your life. You alone control your destiny.” It was like a switch flipped. I realized in that moment just how terrifying this ideology is. If I am the only answer, the only truth; well, there really is no hope.

I was missing something. I had to be. I’m being sold nothing but lies, so where is the right answer? I scoured the Internet, the libraries, every answer the same lie. That’s when I looked down at a drawer I rarely opened and pulled out my old Bible. It hit me right then. I was searching for the new answer, not the right answer. To make a long story short, a couple of years of hard truths and a return to faith led me to move back home to Virginia, leaving the life of Cornell and postmodernism behind.

My story is not all that uncommon in today’s world. Many people my age go through college buying these lies and coming out more miserable than ever. Depression is skyrocketing, anxiety flourishes, while religion wanes. G.K. Chesterton said that “when men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.” In a world stripped of all true meaning and beauty, we are rudderless, wandering the desert. In the desert good is evil and evil is good, left is right, and men can become women. How does one escape such a world? The first step is remembering that you are not alone.

Whether you are religious or not, you do still live in a community, and that matters. That means that you can be a part of something bigger than yourself. We are one of the loneliest generations, and in part it’s because we stopped worrying about the whole and started worrying only about the self. We used to believe in honor and duty to one’s community. It filled men with purpose and motivation in a way that is uncommon these days. As a generation coming of age, we have the unique opportunity to reconnect with our communities, leading them out of the desert.

There’s plenty of opportunities to start making a difference. This upcoming special election on January 7^th is the perfect example. The Democrat nominee for the Virginia Senate Seat of the 32^nd District, Kannan Srinivasan, voted against the bipartisan bill to require public schools to inform parents within 24 hours of school-connected overdoses. Two illegal immigrants were arrested in Sterling, VA, just a few weeks ago for maliciously shooting into a vehicle. One of them was arrested a year ago but released without prosecution. This is the country the Left wants to build. It affects all of us. In Luke 9:62, Jesus says that “no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” We are a generation lost. In order to find ourselves again, we have to put our hands to the plow, and that starts right here at home. From there we push forward, and we don’t look back.

Nathan Lippincott is a Gen Z resident of Loudoun County.