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land is loamy water is plenty food is wasting roads are flooding
art is booming talent is growing love is rusty people are hungry
youth is rising ideas are flowing hope is grounding change is coming
-安天美
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I remember the first time I dug my hands into rich, dark soil. I was 1 year old. It was in my mother’s garden, where the earth was so alive it seemed to breathe shaded by plantain leaves. The loamy soil slipped through my fingers, holding secrets of growth and renewal that echoed the sentiments of my observation of our world.
We live in an age of fascinating contradictions. Our rivers run full while water bottles pile up in landfills. Our fields yield more crops than any time in human history, yet somewhere, not far from where you're reading this, perfectly good food is being thrown away while others go to bed hungry. This is the story of our time.
Driving around, I see these contrasts play out like scenes from a complex drama. Art galleries spring up in renovated warehouses, their walls adorned with expressions of human creativity that take my breath away. Social media feeds overflow with young people showcasing remarkable talents – singing, coding, creating, innovating. The human spirit seems to soar higher with each passing day.
Yet in the same streets, I notice how people hurry past each other, eyes glued to screens, headphones creating invisible barriers. Love, that most fundamental of human connections, grows rusty like an old gate rarely opened. We are more connected than ever, yet somehow more alone. The talent grows, but so does the hunger – not just for food, but for meaningful connection, for purpose, for understanding.
Nature herself seems to be sending us messages we can't ignore. The roads that flood with increasing regularity remind us that our carefully constructed world isn't as solid as we'd like to believe. Yet even here, in the challenges we face, there's a strange hope. For in understanding these contradictions – really seeing them – lies the power to change them.
To the young hearts reading this: you inherit a world of paradoxes. But remember, within every contradiction lies an opportunity. Where food is wasting, imagine new distribution systems. Where love grows rusty, forge new ways of connecting. Where talent blooms alongside hunger, dream up ways to channel one to solve the other.
The loamy land holds seeds of change. The plenty of water carries currents of possibility. The booming art speaks truth to power. And the growing talent, your talent, holds keys to doors we haven't yet imagined.
This is our world – complicated, contradictory, challenging, and beautiful. In acknowledging both its brightness and shadows, we begin the work of bridging its divides. Every generation receives a world and reshapes it. This one, with all its paradoxes, is ours to transform.
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<aside> <img src="/icons/backward_blue.svg" alt="/icons/backward_blue.svg" width="40px" /> Body as Temple
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<aside> <img src="/icons/forward_blue.svg" alt="/icons/forward_blue.svg" width="40px" /> Prisms of Love
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