Something I have always known is that the playing field is not always level for everybody.  

I know that is a pretty generic statement, but in a way, I think that it applies to a lot of situations, so I will keep it.  

I can think of plenty of situations that I have personally been in that had implied power dynamics. While I realized that the power dynamics were there, I never knew how I could fix them, personally without possibly making the situation worse.  

With any situation that comes up, from environmental issues, educational issues or even economic issues, I feel like people always shove that kind of stuff off. They think things like ‘Oh, that is not my job,’ or that ‘the younger generation will and should take care of it because my time on Earth is more limited than theirs,’.  

I am not saying that any of that is not true, but without having others help lift the playing field, the fields keep drifting farther and farther apart, which then makes it easier for these issues to become unsolvable and unable to be fixed.  

Something that I think is obvious is that there have never been great strides without great setbacks. As soon as we get somewhere, something changes for the worse, making me wonder if and when the playing field will be level.  

I know that none of these things are black and white and that they cannot be oversimplified. However, I also think that when some people really think about it, they think that some have access to many more things than they do, which ends up causing nothing to be done.  

So, I keep wondering, as someone who has not always had a level playing field, how we make our playing field level. How do we fix this if there are people that refuse to help make the world fixable or help by giving us resources to fix it.  

This may seem like an abrupt change of subject; I promise it is not. I saw a TikTok that said much of our world is run by the social elite and that in a way what they say goes.  

While I am not saying everything this person said was true, I think that they had a good point. People that are considered socially elite run the world and are able to run the world the way they want, without any consideration for those below them.  

I think that, as much as I hate to say this, in a way we are all on our own. While I would hope we band together for a better world, I do not know if that will happen.  

Which makes me wonder what our world has come to.  

Katja Benz is a senior English major. She can be reached at kkbenz@eiu.edu or 217-581-2812.