What does it mean to be a teenager?

[azekeil]

I've seen a few LJ posts recently about writing letters to your 16 year old self. That's cute, but of course purely a hypothetical exercise in regret and possibly nostalgia, understandable only from the perspective of someone in their adult life.

Teenagers think they know it all. Sweeping generalisation aside - why? Well I think a lot of the reasons are hormonal of course, and with that raging torrent of hormones and the need to be treated more as a grown-up and less as a child, this is one of the attitudes they adopt. I think it could be because they can read, understand and write adult words. They can engage in nearly all the same activities an adult can (legality to the side for one moment) - sex, smoking, drinking, driving, drugs.. so they believe that as they can do all the things they see an adult doing, they think they must have cracked it, and believe they know it all.

But, as every non-self-delusional actual adult realises with hindsight - no, their teenage self merely observed the world of the adult - as per Stephen Fry above. They had yet to take personal responsibility in it, thereby fully understand it and thus also understand themselves and what they really want.

So, the trick is, how do you get that hindsight before you end up, years later, writing that letter to your 16 year old self that is full of regret and nostalgia?

Comments

[the-mendicant.livejournal.com]

Buggered if I know the answer - but if you find out in the next 19 days, please let me know, in time for Evan's 16th Birthday!

Have you heard the saying, "When I was 18 my Dad knew nothing, now I'm 25 I'm amazed how much he's learnt!"

Unfortunately, all the best lessons are learnt the hard way and the amount of wisdom or foresight you gain is in direct disproportion to the ability of your body to go out there and strut its funky stuff without landing you in a whole heap of steaming poo.

[gashinryu.livejournal.com]

So, the trick is, how do you get that hindsight before you end up, years later, writing that letter to your 16 year old self that is full of regret and nostalgia?

You don't. And you never should. :-)

[air-bizkit.livejournal.com]

You kick 'em out the front door and tell 'em its time they made their own way in the world with no further support from you.

Admittedly, they either forge ahead, becoming adult and responsible very, very quickly... OR ... YOU end up collecting them in six months time because they've fallen over in a big way and can't get up on their own.

Either way you get an 'adult' who has tasted the world and has learned the necessary amount of cynisism and jaded-ness required to partake of this corkscrew existence, just a pity that the ones that end up falling over and hurting themselves can sometimes never get up the gumption to want to go back out into a world this horrible.