The World Has Become Loud

Saturday — A Taste of Flava

Disclaimer:
These are my personal thoughts and observations based on what I have lived and what I see around me. I am not speaking for every race, generation, gender, age group, workplace, or community. I am speaking from my own life experience. You may see things differently, and I believe there should be room for that too.

The more I look at life in 2026, the more I realize something.

The world has become loud.

And somewhere along the way, it feels like we started treating the loudest voice as the person preaching the facts.

If somebody says something loudly enough, repeats it enough, gathers enough people around it, gives it a label and puts a definition behind it, suddenly everybody else is expected to accept it.

Not question it.

Not think about it.

Not compare it to their own life experiences.

Just accept it.

And that does not make sense to me.

I believe a person should grow into who they are.

Live some life.

Experience people.

Make mistakes.

Learn.

Work.

Lose.

Love.

Take responsibility.

Get knocked down.

Get back up.

Learn what matters and what does not.

And over time, you start developing your own truth based on what you have actually lived.

That is different from having somebody hand you an agenda and tell you what you are supposed to believe.

I think we are losing the value of lived experience.

I see it even in my own workplace.

I am the oldest person in my work group.

I have been working most of my life.

I have dealt with people from all walks of life.

I have supervised people.

Trained people.

Helped develop people.

Worked with customers.

Worked in healthcare.

Owned businesses.

Made mistakes.

Learned from people older than me.

And then eventually I became the older person who had something to offer the next person coming behind me.

But now?

The young workers tend to turn to each other.

They don’t necessarily look at the seasoned worker and think:

She may know something that could help me.

They look across the room at somebody their own age.

And I notice it.

I am not saying this because I need somebody to come ask me for advice.

I am saying it because we are losing something.

For most of my working life, there was always somebody seasoned around.

You learned from them.

You watched them.

You asked questions.

They explained why something was done a certain way.

Then one day, you became that person.

That was how experience moved from one generation to another.

Now I am not sure that transfer is happening the same way.

And this is bigger than the workplace.

I see the same pattern everywhere.

Race.

Education.

Generations.

Where people come from.

Gender.

Identity.

Politics.

Sports.

Teenagers.

Social media.

There always seems to be somebody telling us which side we are supposed to stand on.

Who we are supposed to blame.

Who is the victim.

Who is the problem.

Who needs to apologize.

Who needs to be educated.

Who needs to accept something.

And if you don’t?

The volume goes up.

I see racial division becoming louder in places where people should simply be able to play a sport, go to school, work, raise their families, and live their lives.

I see situations amongst teenagers where race enters the conversation before anybody has even stopped long enough to look at the behavior of the individuals involved.

I see adults do the same thing.

Something happens and before we know the whole story, everybody has already chosen a side.

Why?

Because somebody got loud first.

And once people choose a side, they stop listening.

That worries me.

Racism is real.

Discrimination is real.

History is real.

Generational differences are real.

Lack of education can absolutely affect somebody’s life.

Where you come from can shape you.

But none of those things should become an automatic explanation for every interaction between human beings.

Sometimes we need to look at the person.

What did that person do?

What did that person say?

What choices did that person make?

What responsibility does that person have?

We have gotten so comfortable putting people into categories that sometimes we forget there is an individual standing inside the category.

And people are much more complicated than a label.

I think another problem is that people are being encouraged to define themselves before they have even had time to discover themselves.

There are so many labels.

So many categories.

So many identities.

So many explanations.

So many groups telling people:

This is who you are.

This is why you feel this way.

This is who is responsible.

These are your people.

Maybe.

But maybe a young person also needs time to simply live.

Experience life.

Meet different people.

Travel.

Work.

Fall in love.

Get their heart broken.

Fail at something.

Succeed at something.

Care for somebody.

Lose somebody.

Change their mind.

Change it again.

That is how you begin to know yourself.

I am 66 years old and life is still teaching me.

So I cannot imagine believing that a 20-year-old has finished becoming who they are.

They haven’t.

And that is okay.

None of us had everything figured out at 20.

The difference I see now is that there are so many people waiting to tell young people exactly who they are before life has had the opportunity to teach them.

I wish we valued wisdom more.

Not just age.

Because getting older does not automatically make somebody wise.

But lived experience has value.

There is something to be gained from a person who has been through some things.

There is something to be gained from somebody who has learned how to deal with people.

How to communicate.

How to read a room.

How to sit quietly with somebody who is hurting.

How to recognize when someone needs a little more patience.

I see that with people my age and older all the time.

Sometimes they just need somebody to slow down.

Listen.

Explain.

Connect.

I understand that because I have lived long enough to understand it.

That is not something I learned from a definition.

I learned it from people.

And maybe that is what I think we are missing most.

Real connection.

We are talking more than ever.

Posting more than ever.

Explaining ourselves more than ever.

Labeling more than ever.

Arguing more than ever.

Yet somehow we seem to understand each other less.

Everybody wants to be heard.

Very few people seem interested in listening.

Everybody has a truth.

Everybody has a cause.

Everybody has an explanation.

Everybody has an agenda.

And everybody seems to believe that if they get loud enough, eventually everyone else will have to agree.

I don’t want that kind of world.

I want to be able to know who I am without making somebody else become me.

I want somebody else to know who they are without demanding that I become them.

I want us to learn from each other.

Older people have something to offer younger people.

Younger people have something to teach older people.

Different cultures have things to teach each other.

Different races have things to learn about each other.

Educated people can learn from people without degrees.

People without degrees can learn from people who spent years studying something.

There is room for all of it.

But we have to stop believing that only one voice can be right.

We also need to stop treating disagreement like hatred.

Sometimes I simply do not agree with you.

That does not mean I hate you.

That does not mean I fear you.

That does not mean I need to be educated.

It may simply mean that my life experiences brought me to a different conclusion than yours did.

And we should be mature enough to live with that.

I think people need to become more comfortable within themselves.

Own your truth.

Own your choices.

Own your mistakes.

Own your life.

Be productive.

Contribute something.

Treat people well.

Ask for help when you need it.

Offer help when you have something to give.

Connect with people when connection is needed.

And stop looking around constantly for somebody else to blame for everything that isn’t going right.

Life is not always fair.

People are not always fair.

Systems are not always fair.

But we still have to decide what kind of person we are going to be inside of all of it.

That part belongs to us.

I know there are people who will disagree with me.

That’s okay.

I don’t need everybody to agree with me.

That is actually my point.

I just wish we could become quieter long enough to hear one another again.

Not every difference needs a debate.

Not every disagreement needs a label.

Not every problem needs a group to blame.

Sometimes two human beings just need to sit down, listen, learn something about one another and move forward.

Maybe I am old-fashioned.

Maybe I have simply lived long enough to know that most people are much more alike than all these divisions would have us believe.

Either way…

I am just sitting up here in my Tower watching this very loud world and trying to make sense of life in 2026.

From Flava in Her Tower 🌻