Responsibility of Coexistence

A philosophical or literary text written by someone my age (currently 21) is often viewed with suspicion. Why?

Because being "too young" is seen as a sign of incapacity to truly grasp the complexity of life. As if the words written were empty, borrowed from others, or, worse still, because one hasn't accumulated enough experience, making them seem less credible.

But let’s think about this for a moment: the time we live, if experienced with awareness and depth, is far richer than we might believe. It’s not the amount of experiences that defines their value, but the ability to extract meaning from each individual event. It’s not about how much you’ve lived, but how you’ve lived.

And yet, today, it seems like this ability has been lost. Perhaps the problem is that we are increasingly perceiving (and living) our time in a passive way, fragmenting it into mundane routines we take for granted, losing the capacity to find meaning in events.

Youth, instead of being seen as an advanced evolutionary phase with maximum biological potential (both intellectual and physical), is increasingly viewed—and excused—as a stage of stupidity and immaturity.

But a human being only becomes stupid and immature if allowed to. It’s not about hormones, biochemistry, or neurotransmitters: it’s about responsibility.

The biological changes of this stage do not justify stupidity or lack of responsibility. What justifies them is comfort, the ability to afford it. And I’m not talking about financial comfort, but a social context where survival is taken for granted. In our Western condition, we’ve moved from surviving to merely living. This, in itself, is not a bad thing, but if survival once entailed responsibility, then living requires responsibility too—both towards ourselves and others.

We must stop this indifference toward our society and our evolution, as well as the growing irresponsibility that surrounds us, and stop excusing ourselves from thinking deeply or making conscious decisions.

This growing lack of responsibility risks making future generations weaker.

Because a society that renounces complexity is a fragile society.

Freedom doesn’t exist in the intrinsic sense of doing whatever we want, however we want; it exists paradoxically because of the concept of limits. Your freedom is valid as long as it doesn’t infringe on mine. And for this game of coexistence to work, we need to truly understand what it means to have both rights and duties. We don’t just have rights, nor do we just have duties. They complement each other: if you have rights, you also have duties, and if you have duties, you also have rights. Setting aside the Law, which varies from country to country, there is a rule that transcends national borders, a rule that deals with the existential dilemma of our species: the rule of coexistence.

We all have the right to exist, and therefore to live, but we also have the duty to uphold that right in the best possible way through coexistence—living together.

And to coexist, there are rules that cannot be dictated differently from state to state.

We must acknowledge that coexistence is only possible if we follow principles of awareness and responsibility. Too often, we compensate for the shortcomings of those who do not respect these principles.

I don’t criticize young people for the sake of it, but because they are the true hope and opportunity for the betterment of our societies. We cannot stop at criticizing past generations; we must focus on the starting point, the moment when a human being begins to take shape. We must intervene in the process, not just in the product. If young people learn the principles of responsibility and awareness early on, we will live in a future with a much higher standard of coexistence.

Life is certainly meant to be enjoyed, but it’s not pleasant by default.

Pleasure must be earned, comfort must be fought for, serenity must be conquered.

If each of us battles against our selfish and exploitative nature, learning to become aware and responsible, we will win the battle against human nature itself, forging a new one, in favor of our perfect and harmonious coexistence.

-So, from surviving, we moved to living, and from living to thriving.