A Buddhist poet once said that as one grows older,one grows stupider.I attributed this claim to bitter cynicism,but now i am not so sure.
You see,i am a teenager.Mine is a stage of life that is full of learning,confusion and acne.But the
infamous "Teenage" is something else too.It is a catalyst.I dont know if its the raging hormones,
or the complete isolation that the teenagers seem to feel,but something happens to us.Something
triggers us to do what a lot of people seem to have forgotten how to do-question.
Till the happy age of twelve,we are told a lot of things and this is how our foundation as a human
being is built.Then,if we are unlucky,at the age of thirteen,we begin to question everything that we have been taught.The distraught parents and teachers like to call it the naturally "rebellious
nature" of the teenagers,but actually it is just us trying to understand things that have been taken for granted for so long.Matters such as death,ethics,and the purpose of life might be what that drug abusing,tattoo covered,apparanetly 'lost' son of yours is actually thinking about.I know
I am.
To me,grades,getting a job or making money seem the least of our problems.What about dying?Why spend all our lives trying to secure a 'good future' when actually all our futures are quite similar?What about the difference between good and bad?Everone knows that we consider good or bad is only what we've been conditioned to believe through our upbringing,so why should anyone still cling like leeches to obsolete views and archaic opinions-on the glory of nationhood,sanctity of tradition-that are neither absolute nor relevant.What about the countries at war?What about the religions and the riots they cause?Why isnt everyone worried about these things?Does everyone just want to keep living in complacence only to die one day not knowing anything more than what they were taught by others?Think about it-we begin dying he moment we are born.Time is short-too short to worry about policies and possession.
The teenage years are most probably the most tormented time of one's life,but given a choice
between a confused teenager an a habituated grown up,the pimples dont seem half as bad!
:) :) :)
ReplyDeleteYou have written here, all that I always think about! It is amazing how two people can think so similarly.
But I can say this. The "rebellious nature" that you describe in this post, even if is true with all the teenagers, I believe that a very small amt of teenagers actually frame questions abt the "taken for granted" things and ask others (elders) the question "Why".
I will tell you why I say this. I am an atheist. As far as I can remember, the first time (when I started understanding things) my father asked me to join hands in front of a "god", and pray, I asked "Why". Believe it or not, I did not get a satisfactory answer and to this day I have not "prayed" to god.
How many do you think do this? How many atheists do you find around us? I ask my friends the same question that I had asked my dad. I ask the question to every single "believer" I come across. I have to get an answer yet.
The point is, people like us (I don't have any idea whether you are an atheist or not, but by "us" I mean rational people) are too few. And if you know what I mean, you will see that "we" are the least tormented in the teenage section :P :P :P