“Do I Wanna Know?” Yes, that question is the name of a popular song (ahem clickbait). The real question is: Do you wanna know? About the humanitarian crisis in Yemen or the devastated city of Beirut? What about the mass graves that were dug in New York? No, you probably don’t want to hear about that. I don’t want to either, but I realized I have to. 

It’s one thing to hear of these things, but to see them is a whole other. You don’t have to necessarily witness them with your own eyes, though. Oftentimes a convenient excuse arises when you “just haven’t seen it first hand.” 

My whole life I’ve used that excuse and my whole life I’ve been blissfully oblivious. Have you ever seen The Matrix? That is yet another thing I haven’t seen. A mere movie about what’s just below the surface and I decided to, as the movie dubbed it, “blue pill.” Yes, my fragile mind couldn’t sustain any more blows to its feeble understanding of the universe. If you, unlike me, actually made it through the movie I’m sure you find that quite ironic. 

Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for the rest of the suffering world, we no longer have the ability to shelter ourselves from ugly truths. They seem to be knocking at our doors. Like how I said earlier, it’s one thing to hear of something but it’s entirely another to see it. Or, as The Matrix said much more eloquently, “there is a difference between knowing the path and walking it.” Well, in lieu of COVID-19 and everything else, we are taking our first steps down the path. 

The first steps I’ve taken have been hesitant and very much forced (not at all am I a trailblazer). I figure that’s ok, though, hardly anyone is…right? (a prime example of a bad mentality that inhibits any real change). If I’m being really honest, I even resent the fact I have to abandon my girlish ideas of peace and harmony among worlds. If you’re honest with yourself, I bet you do too to some degree. After all, if someone can afford to spend their days happily buried away in “Plain-o,” they probably will. As it is though, I figure I better step up.

Why? Well, to safeguard my own future, of course, but while I’m at it, for the rest of the world too (don’t take my tone too seriously, please). I think one of the main reasons I have been hesitant to pick up my pitchfork and become an activist is because I have always underestimated my impact. After all, what can a 16-year-old girl from Texas really do? The honest answer is not much (unless you’re an outlier and in that case great job). But here’s the catch, if every teenager from all 50 states decided to do just a little more, the impact would be gargantuan. Not to mention all the outliers we’d pick up along the way!

I suppose Instagram posts and stories work in the same way. If enough people post about something, people are bound to know about it. Here’s where we take the big leap, though. Once you know about something, what are you going to do? What good is that knowledge if it’s just going to sit on your Instagram page for 24 hours and disappear? 

Here is where I challenge myself. Rather than absorbing that knowledge and walking the other way, I want to act. Write about it, talk about it, do something, do anything but forget about it. I feel like so much has been unveiled in the past few months that we have almost been desensitized to the horrors of the world. “Mass shooting here, mass genocide there” and it’s just another day. Then eventually, we start to believe that’s normal. Slowly, we are conditioned to believe that that’s the way it’s always been and always will be. Even our memes reflect this.

Here’s the thing, our whole lives we have been blessed enough to be ignorant. Ignorance is bliss, but it’s also dangerous (another Matrix reference I’m proud to say). So now that the curtain is slowly being drawn back, are you going to turn away or shield your eyes, or even worse, are you going to let yourself get used to what you see? So now that you know, whether you wanted to or not, are you going to act? Knowing is a great first step, but it’s not enough. And before you wonder, your efforts will not be in vain. Little by little they will add up. I have no excuses now and neither do you. I guess the title of this should be “Do I Wanna Act?”