Written by Mark Slagle
I can escape in a dream. I can imagine myself at the top of Everest, covered in ice and gasping for thin air through the giant smile across my face. I’m likely to have frostbite and a ferociously thick mustache. A mustache can define a man. I picture myself, of course, as the protagonist, the hero, the victor; an outlaw in some old western town, scar on my face and yet again (or rather, more complete) with a mustache as thick as the mane on my horse, which of course I call with a stout whistle, a skill which has eluded my talents my entire life but hey, it’s a dream. Think “Iron Will” meets “Tombstone.” I’m called by the townspeople to save all of the orphans from a malicious railroad owner forcing them to work dreadful hours as slaves.
I can get really specific and plan out each scenario. I play it all out, frame by frame in my head. I’m the director in my own blockbuster. I feel a crimson cape resting on my shoulders and a leather diaper fastened just below my bulging six pack. Spear in hand, I protect the liberties of the Spartan homefront. More often though, I’m a humble soldier, running through the woods of France, carrying an injured child, bullets whizzing by, barely dodging each one as I save a whole town from Hitler himself. Occasionally, I’ll drift to the glory of nailing that last finger shakedown in a grand finale of Spring Sing, dressed up and down in more glitter and silk than pride. But my manhood will quickly stir myself back into a flannel-clad mountain climber or leather-skinned pirate, wind in my hair and sea salt on my lips.
I wake up rubbing the sleep out of my eyes to find myself at a small, Christian school in Searcy, Arkansas … hardly World War II France or a massive peak in Nepal. And the closest I’ve come to the Wild West is trying to pull off a denim shirt with denim jeans.
I turn on the television at night to find guys my age winning gold medals, upsetting number one seeds, even putting on vampire teeth and a pea coat to capture the hearts of women across the nation.
But how will we be remembered? As a group of good students at a small-town school in the middle of Arkansas? I pray that my kids never utter the phrase, “I just can’t wait ‘til I get to fret over my test grades and worry about grad school just like you, Dad!” Or that they would dream sweet dreams of reaching the 1,000 friend mark on Facebook? When did our dreams of being firemen and astronauts turn into dreams of becoming great test-takers and having stunning online profile pictures? Our saloons have turned into study rooms, our open ranges of buffalo have transformed into vending machines, and our national parks have been reduced to treadmills. Where have our cowboys gone? There are very few of us who can even really pull off a mustache anyway.
And I start to dream of our generation as a whole. We serve. We care. Not that this is completely unique to our generation as opposed to the many generations before us, but the fact still remains that we do. We serve. We care. But with unlimited possibility. No other generation before has had the opportunities we do. The Internet as we know it didn’t even exist during our parents’ age. The ability to travel from one continent to another so effortlessly is completely exclusive to our generation’s toolbox. We are able to communicate in seconds from one side of the globe to another. Never underestimate that we are in the middle of a very critical point in history. These tools are at our disposal, and how we use them will define our generation. I’ve seen students go and do unimaginably selfless things for the good of others all over our planet, not for personal gain, but because it was a way they could help. We are setting a new precedent, a new standard in service. By using the fruits of our time, we serve others in ways no one has been able to before. We are constantly challenging the impossibility set before us. A cure for world hunger no longer seems unattainable. The end of malaria is a target in sight. We’re not daydreaming; we’re actively doing. I crave that this hope and resoluteness define our generation. Of course it’s somewhat ridiculous, but most dreams are.
Someday we’ll be mothers. What stories will we raise our kids on? I pray that Peter Pan lights up a little boy’s eyes and he wonders, if only for a second, what it would be like to fly. Someday our granddaughters will find an old picture and ask us what it was like to be born in the late 80s. Next year the freshmen will probably ask the same question.
Someday we’ll be fathers. What will our sons say about us at the playground? Will they gloat about our Ray Bans and skinny jeans? Will they brag on how much our starting income was out of college? Of course not, because those things will pass with the trends of our generation; Tamigotchis and our easy-bake ovens, our VHSs and our Twilight books. No, they won’t be bogged down with those things. They’ll talk of how we lived, how we served, and they’ll talk of how we loved… and have never really let up doing so. And of course, they’ll giggle when our mustaches tickle their cheeks as we kiss them good night.
