A writing prompt arrived in my in-box a few days ago. It invited wordplay poetry on the Oxford English Dictionary’s Word-of-the-Year, “rage bait.”

I joined the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center several months ago. I didn’t think of myself as a poet. Yet I fell in love with these people and their big thoughts, courageously stepping up to the mic every second Tuesday at the local bookstore. I attended several of their poetry writing workshops over the summer. Now, they are celebrating the New Year’s Poetry Challenge by sending us daily writing prompts. It’s fun, and thought-provoking.

Along with “rage bait,” I threw a few other words-of-the-year into my completely unserious, wordplay poem. I planned to stand by for the next prompt. Except I couldn’t stop thinking about the common thread linking this year’s words: vibe coding (Collins), slop (Merriam-Webster, The Economist), rage bait (OED), parasocial (Cambridge), 6-7 (Dictionary.com). Down deep, each word or phrase means you’re not thinking. The idea of an unthinking connection to other people (parasocial) is just disturbing, and responding to someone with “6-7” feels nihilistic.

We didn’t fight for an unthinking world. We fought for one that gives people options. I worry about parents of young children with autism: they need real, thinking people in their corner. Similarly, my teacher friends worry about their students when they lack hope.

A few folks in our society have had it pretty good. They want the party to go on, and it can if the rest of us go brain dead. Of course, our kids deserve better. We need to equip them to be deep, imaginative thinkers.

Many kids in Modesto play outside with each other. They get themselves to school on bicycle or city bus. They stop at the grocery store on the way home. As a result, I doubt anyone here calls Child Protective Services because they saw a free-range kid in the park. Kids take chances and sometimes do reckless things, but they are working on their imaginative courage. We should acknowledge and support that, even as we redirect them toward smarter things.

Very soon – sooner than we might prefer – the world will be wildly different. That doesn’t mean we’ve doomed today’s children to be the Lost Generation. They have a true opportunity that few generations have: imagining the world they want and re-shaping to make it so.

We are called to help them believe in this huge opportunity. It’s on us to be thinking, and to get others thinking, too. We are raising dragon slayers in a time of dragons.