Getting Older, Teenagers Are Wacky

So I've always thought of myself as a big kid. I work easily with teenagers because Ive always felt more comfortable in their world than in the adult world. However, I think Im finally starting to feel some distance between myself and the teenage world.

Example 1:

Yesterday I was flipping through the TV channels when I came across the movie Dazed and Confused. The movie is about high schoolers on their last day of school. The survive the school year and head out into the night looking to party and do all the other kinds of things that kids do to feel like they are growing up.

The movie isnt particularly good, but when I checked the time I realized that I had been watching the movie for about 45 minutes because I was engrossed by the dynamics of the relationships between the teenagers. As if I dont work with teenagers every single day.

Example 2:

I am collecting magazines for an art project that we are doing this summer at the YMCA. One particular magazine had a pretty wild picture on the cover so I thought it would be a good idea to skip through the magazine and rip out any pictures that our teenage guys might fine "too interesting." By the time I was at the end of the magazine, there was nothing left.

I picked up the next magazine and began ripping away again. Half way through my fifth magazine I had an interesting revelation. I had began taking out pictures because of the effect that they might have on my teenage guys, but somewhere along the line I had shifted to ripping out images for the sake of my teenage girls.

I began to worry about the ideas that these girls would pick up on how to feel valuable, attractive, and worthy. Skin is definitely in. Every picture is sex. The only thing worse than the lack of clothing is the facial expressions of the models. Each girl looks like she is on the brink of sexual ecstasy. Maybe Im out of the loop and modeling fine clothes will do that for you. I suspect not.

I dont know what I would do if I were the parent of a girl.


Closing Thought:
It just occurs to me that the previous statement is a perfect example of the paradigm shift that is happening. Maybe whereas I used to feel like a wiser, more experienced peer to the teenagers, I am now thinking of them as a parent or safe-keeper would.

I dont even know if that makes sense.

In Real Life

Do you ever find yourself standing in the bathroom looking at the towels and thinking, "those are ugly towels. Whoever picked those out shouldnt be allowed to make decisions." And then you remember that you were the one who picked them out?

What do you do with that? And yes, the towel is a metaphor, I just dont know what it represents yet.


So last night I watched Dan In Real Life. The cover said that it was "blissfully funny" or something like that. I dont know if Id even call it a comedy. The family dynamic in the movie really has me thinking.


Anyway, the music was done by Sondre Lerche and that is the part that I enjoyed the most.

What Ive Learned

So Im reading the Jan 08 edition of Esquire magazine and I stumble across an article called "What Ive Learned." There are interviews from actors, athletes, musicians, movie directors, comedians, etc. Some of their responses have had me thinking today.

Johnny Depp, “I don’t think anybody’s necessarily ready for death. You can only hope that when it approaches, you feel like you’ve said what you wanted to say. Nobody wants to go out mid-sentence.

Ray Charles, “Nowadays they say you need to get a special chip to put in the TV so the kids cant watch this and that. In my day, we didn’t need that. My mom was the chip. End of story.

Muhammad Ali, “What you are thinking about, you are becoming”

Carrie Fisher, "Resentment is like drinking poison and then waiting for the other person to die.”

Rodney Dangerfield, “What good is being the best, if it brings out the worst in you?”

Vonnegut said the existence of music is proof of the existence of God. Don’t agree? Go see Springsteen on a Saturday night and go to church on Sunday morning, and then tell me which event made you feel more alive.” –Timothy McGann

Willie Nelson, “Cruelty is all out of ignorance. If you knew what was in store for you, you wouldn’t hurt anybody, because whatever you do comes back much more forceful than you send it out.”


Any thoughts?