Gen z who lived about 16 years of her life in London here: gen z HAVE had it tough. I did my A levels during the worst parts of the pandemic and it was ROUGH.

the government literally left us until till the last minute to tell us what to do about our exams (and we were the year AFTER the first batch of pandemic A level students).

I spent many months shielding, even though I wanted to go to school, because of the toll it would’ve had on my mental health because I was worried I would infect my grandparents with COVID.

Yes, I know that I am privileged to a degree because online education is possible for me, but this isn’t a suffering contest.

Though the suffering of other people can put your own into perspective, that doesn’t actually change how we feel. Each problem needs its own solution, each person needs sympathy for their unique set of problems.

I can feel sympathy for people in an objectively worse AND objectively better situation than me, because suffering is one of the few things that is universal.

As for your writing - you should absolutely go ahead and write that London article. Just because you haven’t been stabbed doesn’t mean you don’t have your own perspective. If we wrote without our own point of view, everything we wrote would sound like a watered down news headline.

And even the news has it’s biases! And taking the example of the news further, journalist report on all sorts of things, from the state of bees to war and famine elsewhere.

We have the right to write what we like. But you’re right - we need bravery to exercise that right.

Sorry for going on such a rant, I think I was trying to tell myself all of this as much as you. 😅