HELL: Helping Everyone Live Longer is a non-profit that gives out bicycle helmets for free, no questions asked. It started when Zack Smith was looking for a voice — a way to quell the rage felt when a girl he loved was tragically hit by a car and killed while riding her bike in Allston, MA.  She wasn’t wearing a helmet. So Zack saw something needed to change, and that no one was going to fix it. He stood up and did something.

For a while after the Iraq war started, I jadedly decided that my generation had no balls. That because we weren’t rallying in front of the White House, and massively protesting with sheer social disobedience the way our parents did during Vietnam War, that we were a generation of lazy, digitally-obsessed slackers.

But Obama’s win is indicative of a culture that is quite the opposite. There’s a lot of talk about the Obama campaign’s use of social media to evoke enthusiasm that garnered his win. In essence what he did is say there’s no “top-down” or “bottom-up” – but that we’re all voters, and influence each other with our enthusiasm through word-of-mouth.

Maybe my generation, Gen Y, isn’t all that much of a bored generation after all. There are those who really care about doing things, differently. Better. With more meaning. Utilizing MySpace as a megaphone. A grassroots culture which uses the Web, rather than real-world social rallies, to evoke change. With a focus on an honest bottom line: make shit happen.

The numerous green eco-blogs out there are good examples. So is Space Collective, which I came across recently. They’ve got a section of video “epiphanies” – young people talking about making sense of the world around them. Their opinions are so potent and powerful– and the Web is a perfect vehical to get their message broadcast.

I myself am not gay. But I do deeply empathize with the frustration gay Americans must feel when they’re told they they can’t have the same rights as “straight” Americans.

I also don’t have cable, or watch MSNBC. But came across Keith Olbermann’s commentary on Proposition 8. And his words, so well spoken, captivated me, and I needed to explore more.

So I found myself surfing the Web, jumping from site to site, tracking down ranom bits of information. And I realized, I was channel surfing. Here’s the trail of my web surfing:

• Friend posted YouTube video on Facebook (I watched embedded in F-book)
• I commented on her post
• I Googled for “Omar Khayyám” referenced at the end of the video
• Read Wikipedia entry on Khayyam
• Googled for “book of love and Khayyam”
• Read a WikiSource page with the full Rubaiyat
• Also found a transcript of MSNBC’s site of Olbermann’s commentary
• And 6936 Diggs for Olbermann’s video on the MSNBC site
• Googled for “Clarence Darrow”
• Visited a University of MKC site about Darrow”

How wonderfully has the day gone by!
If only when the stars come we could die,
And morning find us gathered to our dreams,–
Two happy solemn faces, and the sky.