The middle of life feels in some ways like adolescence, what with all the hormones and abrupt body changes. Only sometimes I wish that I felt as confident about taking on the world as I did when I was a teenager.

I started thinking of myself as an activist when I was a high school student. The things that motivated me were 1) education: I knew how important education was in my life’s path and felt very strongly that every person should have the same opportunities, 2) freedom: I wasn’t sure of how my identity would evolve and who I would turn out to be but I thought that I should be allowed to live with respect and dignity regardless, and so should everyone else, and 3) justice: perhaps nothing riles up the resentment of youth like hypocrisy and unfairness. I readied myself to fight against injustice in all of its forms. In many ways, I felt that I was born an underdog and it was my responsibility to use whatever advantages I might acquire in life to help other underdogs.

Here I am in the above photo at my very first protest as a high school sophomore, pressuring then NYC Mayor David Dinkins to stop proposed cuts to the public education budget. The bottom of my t-shirt is illegible here but it says “Education is not Expendable.” Aren’t we cute? Getting into The NYTimes at my very first protest, clearly I thought my future and my impact would be bright.

I knew that I still had much to learn but I had no doubt that I had the ability to take it in, and once I had the answers, all I would have to do is share this insight with the world. People have enormous shortcomings but I believed that embedded in our souls was code programming us to move towards progress. I didn’t know if these interests would lead to gainful employment. Much to my mother’s unease, I was none too preoccupied with that concern.

Decades later, I’ve built up a career that I couldn’t have imagined way back then. I’ve worked on campaigns and programs to do exactly what I wanted to do. I learned a lot, racked up accomplishments, garnered respect. And here I land in a place in my life where I feel less certain than ever about what the hell is going on in this world. The victories and progress I have been part of are increasingly being eaten away by destructive forces that would have also been beyond my imagination back when I was a wide-eyed youngster.

Clearly, feeling uncertainty is exacerbated by being a newcomer away from my homeland, tasked with learning so many challenging things. This has made middle life all the more like a second childhood – only one where instead of never thinking about consequences, it sometimes feels as if I think of little else. Putting yourself into situations where you are clueless may be the real fountain of youth.

In some ways, the onslaught of my feelings of bewilderment about the world and where humanity is going began on the morning of September 11, 2001 when I saw horror strike at the very heart of my city, a place that felt like the invincible and reliable father I never had. It apexed in November of 2016 (just before my 40th birthday) with the election of Donald Trump. And it continues to erupt with every hateful and unspeakable act of violence spreading across the globe rapidly and with the random precision of chaos.

I wish I knew the secret to liberating humankind from all the awfulness. My main instinct is that the only antidote to destruction is creation. So, I invite us all to create as relentlessly as we can. Channel all the imagination and DYI mojo you can muster from adolescence. Build and replenish with all the naive audacity of youth. Record an album in your bedroom, write that book, do that screen printing project you dreamed up way back when, learn a new language, take a class in something you know nothing about out of simple curiosity. Nourish the wisdom you have acquired and starve the doubts.