We ended up with way too many narrators.
\nBut not to worry,
\nBecause \u201cBe the change you wish to see in the world\u201d is now under 140 characters.
\nCongratulations.
\nOur generation was able to make \u2018Revolution\u2019 into a vintage plaid shirt, stuffed in a trash bag.
\nAll we had to do was buy one from a thrift shop and give it a filter and a hashtag and voila.
\nWe all wanted so badly for John Lennon to rise from the dead,
\nJust so he can endorse the circular framed glasses and the iPhone 10.
\nWe all wanted to believe that he would launch is conscious folk duet project with Ono and not sellout,
\nAnd we act surprised when he gets a bunch of DUIs and releases a dance remix to \u201cImagine\u201d featuring Deadmau5
\nI encourage you to look closer.
\nYou\u2019d see that it\u2019s the same scenes on these broken projectors.
\nIt\u2019s the same dusty textbooks in our history lectures.
\nOur megaphones are beginning to sound like broken records;
\nUseless chants by young pawns obsessed with being kings, but never taught chess or checkers,<\/p>\n
But just how to be these necrophiliac Hannibal Lecters, raping the corpses of our dead predecessors,
\nJust to suck away a quote.
\nAnd we wonder why,
\nThe eagles and the falcons rarely leave the treetops.
\nOnce upon a time,
\nThey came to teach us how to spread our wings for freedom,
\nAnd look,
\nWe became a bunch of parrots and peacocks.
\nNow some may call me a lazy pessimist, and to be honest, I have to agree.
\nSee I used to be that kid that waited for someone to move me, but all I heard were these clowns yappin\u2019 about some backwards movement, blaring from my TV.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So all these Bob Marley and Bob Dylan covers and hacky sacks, it was easier to be a hypocrite.
\nWe\u2019re clever enough now that we can flip their shit to remind us that ignorance is still bliss.
\nBecause at this point, we are educated enough to understand the dreams that Martin Luther King was dreaming,
\nBut whether it\u2019s gunshots, crack rocks or lack of imagination, kids these days are still hardly sleeping.
\nAnd when they are, it is some drug induced slumber,
\nAnd at that point, all they can see is color.
\nSo how do they expect us to share this vision, if our idea of change is a scenic picture with a quote?
\nWe were never taught compassion or sacrifice, but fucking right we know how to use mirrors and smoke.
\nWe\u2019ve recorded the lives of our past leaders, and mashed them all up into special features.
\nMade Bob Marley into some dude with dreads, smoking a spliff on a t-shirt.
\nWhether it\u2019s Tupac, Ghandi, Shakespeare or Renaissance statues,
\nThey just gave lines that our youth get tattooed.
\nWe\u2019re too busy playing suck and blow with their quotes and now we all got mono.
\nWe all bought the fancy shades, and now we all think we\u2019re Bono.
\nBut really we\u2019re just addicted.
\nTo any artificial sense of enlightenment.
\nForgetting,
\nThat we are all just western kids, born with a sense of entitlement.
\nBut see I understand,
\nThat it\u2019s not that simple.
\nThat we were all born with the bark to spark inspiration,
\nBut we\u2019re human.
\nSometimes we end up boarding up our windows.
\nAnd I am a hypocrite too.
\nI\u2019ve been known to be that self-righteous dreamer, eager to get his fight on.
\nLeaving his apartment for a five-dollar organic coffee, while leaving his lights on.
\nI\u2019ve pointed out someone who has littered, and criticized religion,
\nWhile praying for forgiveness for throwing my cigarette butts at pigeons.
\nI think we have the right intentions, but we\u2019re getting a little restless.
\nWe\u2019re starting to forget that it was always more than Woodstock or Obama,
\nChange is called \u2018change\u2019 because it\u2019s a long-term investment.
\nSo if we\u2019re going to do this, pardon the clich\u00e9, but let\u2019s spread our wings, instead of being a flock of parrots retweeting.
\nAnd maybe in 100 years when they open their history text books, we too said words and lived stories worth quoting and reading.<\/p>\n