Stone and Signal - Episode 4: Generation Wild

 

Welcome back to Stone and Signal.  I am excited about this episode.  I hope you enjoy it.

The Podcast Links

Episode 4 on Substack (NEW)

Edpisode 4 on YouTube

Episode 4 on Spotify

The Essay

The Transcript

Companion Essay on Substack (NEW) - What Are We Really Afraid of? 

What Grows Beyond Us

We are not the first generation to fear for the future, but we may be the last with the luxury of treating that fear as theoretical. The young know this. They are not confused by the world’s contradictions—they were born into them. And still, they rise.

Across oceans and borders, classrooms, streets and digital landscapes, youth are reimagining what it means to lead. Not in the way power is traditionally defined—through hierarchy, charisma, or capital—but in the way that ecosystems organize themselves: adaptively, relationally, with purpose rooted in survival and care. Their leadership is not a posture. It’s a pulse.

We often speak of empowering young people as if power is a gift we bestow. But the truth is, power doesn’t need our permission to shift. It only needs our willingness to get out of the way—or better yet, to walk alongside. This requires more than policy changes or youth advisory boards. It requires a reckoning with the ways we’ve hoarded control in the name of experience. It asks us to question the stories we’ve told about who gets to lead, and why.

To stand with the rising generation is to confront our own discomfort. Their clarity can feel like confrontation. Their urgency like impatience. But perhaps what we interpret as threat is actually invitation—the kind that asks us not to become obsolete, but to become more human. To remember what it felt like to believe the world could be remade.

Young people are not waiting for legacy. They are living it. Each act of defiance, each rewilded thought, each refusal to shrink is a thread in a much older tapestry of resistance. What they need from us is not applause or approval. They need fidelity. To truth. To change. To the futures they are already building.

And perhaps most of all, they need us to stop teaching them how to adapt to a world in collapse—and start asking what it would take to build one that doesn’t require their survival skills. That is the real work of solidarity.

Because in the end, intergenerational partnership is not about handing over a torch. It’s about lighting many, together. Watching the landscape shift as unfamiliar paths are illuminated. Accepting that what grows beyond us may not bear our shape, but might still carry our love.

Let it.

Stone and Signal – Episode 4: Generation Wild (Transcript)

Close your eyes for a moment. Listen. What would your younger self have imagined in this sound? A monastery hidden in the hills? A forest untouched by roads? There’s something grounding about

Welcome to Stone and Signal. I’m Lawrence Nault.

This episode is for the young—and the once-young—who still believe the world can be saved. For those who are tired, but still showing up. For those whose hope hasn’t hardened into cynicism, even when the world tells them it should.

Today, we’re talking about youth. Not just youth as an idea, but as a force. A presence. A rising tide. We’ll explore the voices that are leading, resisting, and remembering. The ones that refuse to stay quiet.

Youth is often framed as a phase—something to grow out of. But what if it’s something we grow from? What if it’s not just an age bracket, but a frequency some people never stop tuning into? The kind that pulses beneath movements, melodies, uprisings, and dreams. The kind that doesn't wait for permission.

We’ve been told that the young are naïve, idealistic, impulsive. Maybe. But maybe that idealism is a kind of clarity—a refusal to accept that the way things are is the way they must be. And maybe that refusal is exactly what this moment needs.

[Segment 1 – The Rise of Youth Voices]

In recent years, we’ve seen youth step into roles many adults have abandoned. From Greta Thunberg’s school strike that sparked a global movement, to the young water protectors defending sacred land, to Indigenous youth reclaiming culture and sovereignty—these voices are not future leaders. They are leaders now.

And they’re not just shouting into the void. They’re organizing. Creating. Rebuilding.

They’re holding intergenerational trauma in one hand and digital megaphones in the other. They’re navigating burnout, surveillance, and systemic gaslighting—all while doing their homework. They are teaching the world how to fight with both fire and care.

Still, it isn’t easy. Many of them are dismissed. Labeled as naïve or extreme. Others are exhausted, carrying burdens too heavy for their age. They inherit crises they didn’t cause, and still manage to meet them with imagination.

What I keep seeing—and what I keep writing—is that young people are often the first to understand what’s at stake. And the last to walk away.

They show us that leadership doesn’t always look like power suits or podiums. Sometimes it looks like a teenager testifying at a town hall. A youth-led march in the rain. A digital zine shared among friends. Sometimes it looks like grief turned into music. Or silence broken in a classroom.

Their movements remind us that urgency and hope can co-exist. That systems can be challenged not just with facts, but with story, song, and ceremony. That resistance can be quiet, collective, and deeply cultural.

So the question isn’t whether youth are ready to lead. The question is whether the rest of us are ready to follow.

[Segment 2 – The Young Dragons as Reflection]

In the Draconim series, the Young Dragons aren’t chosen by fate. They’re chosen by purpose. By urgency. By the quiet ache of knowing something needs to be done—and no one else is doing it.

Kai, bonded to the ocean. Amy, with her deep ties to land and spirit. Anne, whose art speaks louder than protest. Each of them reflects a real-world counterpart. A teen who stands up, even when they’re scared. Who speaks, even when their voice shakes.

They don’t always have the right words. Sometimes they get it wrong. But they show up anyway. Because something inside them knows that silence is not an option. That waiting for permission is just another way of letting things fall apart.

There’s a scene in Fingerprints in the Water when Kai, after nearly drowning in grief, is pulled back to the surface by Amy—not with magic, but with memory. With presence. She calls him back through their bond, reminding him of who he is and what he carries.

That moment came from watching real youth break down—and then get back up. Not because they’re resilient by default. But because they’re connected. To each other. To place. To what matters.

So often we talk about youth as if they’re lone heroes or symbols of hope. But the truth is, they don’t act alone. They carry entire communities with them. Ancestors. Teachers. Friends. The land itself.

Kai’s grief isn’t just his own—it’s the ocean’s grief, made personal. Amy’s strength isn’t hers alone—it’s the medicine of the land moving through her. And Anne’s voice? It’s every unheard story finally finding a way to be seen.

These characters aren’t escapist. They’re reflections. And when young readers recognize themselves in Kai, or Amy, or Anne, I want them to feel seen—not as the world imagines them, but as they already are: complicated, capable, and worthy of being listened to.

If there’s magic in these stories, it isn’t fantasy. It’s the real kind. The kind rooted in connection. The kind that says: You’re not alone. You were never alone.

[Segment 3 – The Role of Adults]

I often ask myself what my role is—as an older writer, a quiet observer, someone who’s seen the patterns repeat.

We’re not here to lead them. We’re here to walk beside them.

Support doesn’t always mean stepping in. Sometimes, it means stepping back. Making space. Bearing witness. And when asked—lifting up, resourcing, amplifying.

But let’s be honest: there’s often a deep reluctance—even fear—when it comes to truly empowering young people. Not because we doubt their intelligence or their passion, but because we sense what might happen if they’re given real influence. They might not preserve the status quo. They might dismantle it. And for those of us who’ve grown used to its comforts, that’s unsettling.

It's easier to praise youth than to trust them with power. Easier to host panels than to share platforms. Easier to admire their courage from a distance than to yield control, shift systems, or let go of outdated hierarchies.

I write these stories not to speak for youth, but to speak with them. To offer language where silence threatens to settle in. To hold a mirror, gently—not to reflect what adults expect to see, but what young people already know about themselves and the world they’re navigating.

Because they’re not waiting for permission. They never were.

And the real question is not whether they’re ready. It’s whether we are—ready to listen, to be changed, to follow when it’s our turn to fall in step behind.

[Segment 4 – Empowerment]

I’ve often heard people say, “Youth are the future.”
But I’ve started to resist that phrase. Not because it’s wrong, but because it delays responsibility. It implies that the work—the power, the choice, the reckoning—belongs to some later version of them. After they’ve aged, after they’ve learned the rules, after they’ve waited their turn.

But what if their turn is now?

What if the most radical thing we can do as adults is to stop preparing young people to inherit a broken world, and instead work with them to change it—before the handover happens?

This isn’t a metaphor. It’s happening. Young people are stepping forward in schools, in community halls, on riversides and forest edges and oceanshores. And when they do, they don’t always need a microphone. Sometimes they just need someone to lower the volume in the room long enough for them to speak.

We say we want their voices. But do we create the conditions for them to thrive?

Do we design classrooms where questioning is encouraged?
Do we make meetings accessible, not just physically—but emotionally, culturally, psychologically?
Do we treat their ideas as valuable contributions or polite afterthoughts?
Do we ask them what they need, or do we assume we already know?

Empowering youth isn’t about giving permission. It’s about sharing power.
It’s about handing over the keys—not when we retire or burn out—but now, while we still have the energy to walk alongside them.

And yes, it’s uncomfortable.
Because the voices rising now don’t always echo the ones we’ve nurtured.
They challenge the norms we once accepted.
They push against the systems we’ve made peace with.
They force us to ask: What are we really protecting when we withhold power?

Too often, it’s not them we fear—it’s the changes they might bring.

Because empowering youth means things might look different.

It might mean slower processes, or louder gatherings, or decisions we wouldn’t have made ourselves.
It might mean rethinking traditions. It might mean giving up control.
It might mean that what we built—our programs, our plans, our movements—aren’t what’s needed anymore.

And that’s hard.

But it’s also the point.
We’re not here to be gatekeepers. We’re here to be gardeners.
To nurture what’s growing, not prune it into familiar shapes.

Sometimes that means saying: We tried it this way—and it failed. You don’t have to repeat us.
Sometimes it means saying: We believe you. Even when the world doesn’t.
And sometimes, it just means listening.
Really listening.
Not waiting for our turn to speak.
Not looking for flaws in their logic.
But letting their stories land. Letting their anger breathe. Letting their joy lead.

I’ve sat in circles with teens who were told they were “too emotional,” “too idealistic,” “too impatient.”
But what I heard were hearts unwilling to go numb.
What I saw were people refusing to accept a poisoned status quo.

I’ve seen young leaders name what adults won’t:
That climate collapse isn’t theoretical. That racism isn’t just historical. That injustice isn’t just unfortunate—it’s engineered.

And when they say these things, we shouldn’t be asking them to be more polite.
We should be asking ourselves why we waited so long to say them, too.

So what does it look like to make space?

It can be structural:
Youth-led councils with real budgets.
Policies that require intergenerational collaboration.
Platforms that prioritize youth-made media.

It can be cultural:
Mentorship that centers humility, not heroism.
Ceremonies that honor transitions—not just achievements.
Elders who share stories without expecting replicas.

And it can be personal:
Taking the time to ask, Who’s not in the room?
Saying, I don’t have the answer—but I’ll stand beside you while you ask the question.
Letting go of our need to be the center.
Trusting that the rising generation might see something we’ve missed.

Because they do see what we’ve missed.

They see the interconnectedness we were taught to forget.
They see the climate, not as a distant science, but as their lived reality.
They see identity, not as a binary, but as a spectrum.
They see power, not as something to hoard, but something to share.

And that clarity—that vision—isn’t naïve. It’s necessary.

We are not just passing them a world. We are shaping the conditions of their becoming.
And if we’re lucky, if we’re humble, they’ll shape us in return.

I don’t want to end this episode with a call to action.
I want to end it with a call to attention.
To notice who’s already leading.
To notice when silence is a symptom of exclusion—not disengagement.
To notice when our own comfort becomes a cage.

Empowering youth isn’t an investment in the future.
It’s an act of love in the present.

Let them speak. Let them lead. Let them reimagine what we forgot was possible.

And let’s not just cheer from the sidelines.

Let’s walk with them.

 [Segment 5 – Reflection & Invitation]

If you’re listening and you’re young—this space is for you. You don’t need to have the answers. You don’t need to carry it all. Just know that your voice matters. It always has.

And if you’re not so young anymore—what did you believe in once, before the world taught you to shrink?

What would your younger self ask you to remember?

If you’d like to explore the Young Dragons’ journey, you can find their stories in my books. Sales help support this podcast—and the quiet time it takes to make it.

You can also find transcripts and quiet reflections on my blog.

Thank you for being here. Until next time, may your signal find the stones that hold it.