I don’t think that there are many people who grew up in the milieu of the white collar west who can attest to their teenage years being the most pleasant and memorable period of their lives. By its very nature this time is both angst ridden and suffocating. One comes of age in having left childhood only to be thrust in a world where the sophistication of a more mature age is not so apparent. It is a period of learning and of failing.
Our modern life can protect us from the repercussions of such a fall (more so than was the case in earlier times of social history) but it does not do much to guard one from the insecurities of peer group politics and the herd mentality that seem to define these years. At its core is a struggle between the need to be ourselves as individuals and the realization that those who exist in the Out Grouping walk a path that is perilous. Each day we face these behemoths without the safeguard of life experience that will only emerge in later years.
Now for some the battle is easier than it is for others. They can make their peace with the dichotomy. That was never the case for me. Support may be near but by a strange twist in the irony of life it is distant. For these challenges of the teen years are really ours and ours alone to resolve
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