Author Tim Winton: ‘What we need is the courage to liberate ourselves from these merchants of desolation. It’s a battle being fought on many fronts. But in joining it, and to sustain it, we must foster new alliances, more creativity and deeper empathy.’ The lassitude that distinguishes our moment is born of sorrow and buried rage. We act like colonial subjects because, in effect, that’s what we are “Kids these days are such snowflakes! So flaccid and self-involved, so doomy and anxious. If it’s not the drugs, it’s the screen time, right? I mean, what’s their problem?” I try to sidestep conversations like these. Engaging saps so much time and energy. But avoiding them leaves me feeling dirty. Not because I’ve foregone an opportunity to win an argument, but because I know I’ve failed to defend those who need and deserve my solidarity. The awkward truth is that the mature-aged complainers offering such judgments are not imagining things. The dejection of young people is palpable. But the mistake many of their elders make is assuming that every instance of slumped posture and downcast mien is an expression of choice, a pose being struck for social effect, because often as not, what they’re observing is a logical response to the world around them and their prospects within it. And this air of sadness is hardly confined to hipster cafes, shopping malls and the bedrooms of adolescents. Have you looked in the mirror lately? Have you noticed the glassy stares and heard the listless tones of your middle-aged neighbours and thirtysomething colleagues? Have you considered how we entertain ourselves, the warm bath of false cheer and cheap consolation we wallow in? Trauma specialist Thomas Hübl calls it “collective numbness”, an affect that masks the underworld of stultifying compulsions, addictions and evasions […]