The Terror of Adolescence

Young people are too young to know better. This curse is more apparent among teenagers, many of whom are expected to start figuring out the rules of the game called life, discovering to their dismay that most adults do not play by the same rules, or make them up, or ignore them entirely.

Of course, no matter what the rules may be, no one can keep them. The rules are not made to be broken, but rather are crafted to break us.

Then again, since feel-goodism has replaced critical thinking and appreciation for the truth, a concept made nebulous by post-modern partisan hacks who publish or perish in ivory tower universities. Most textbooks impress the lie that life can be managed, as long as we have all the answers.

Or, in most cases, the answers have been discarded altogether, replaced with the moral relativism of "do what you feel." For adolescents, the problem rests precisely in the unrest of a changing body, an expanding mind, and a growing awareness of the frailty and faultiness of human existence. Depending on one's feelings is like a captain relying on the choppy waves for stability instead of keeping his eyes fixed on the glorious, never-ending horizon that greets every seafarer.

Teenagers, and all human beings, need an immutable standard to guide them. Not their feelings, and not necessarily the wisdom of the elders. The forces of custom, culture, community, and the free market do not operate according to available or evident forces. Much of this life operates according to faith, not reason, yet as reason and intellect has taken first place in the minds of many, many youth find themselves scared and confused. In their hearts, they know, like the darkened enlightenment of Immanuel Kant, that the world has a purpose. The human mind cannot blithely accept that we make the world ourselves, or we define our meaning of the world. Yet nor does the pursuit of meaning or eternal recursion appeal to people. What's the point of running the race if you go in circles, lap after lap, and get nowhere?

Then there is the guilt, the sense of wrongdoing which cannot be dismissed with psychology or camaraderie. Adolescents try to find their voice, their space, their value amidst the clashing perceptions of others, or by sharing the values of people their age, who ultimately are just as clueless as they are.

The Terror of Adolescence, coined and detailed by conservative playwright David Mamet, depicts the fraught existence of many youth, of many adults in this world. Trying to make sense of the world based on their intuition, their possessions, or their recriminations, the world remains one of shifting sand, slipping priorities, and confusion all around.

The search for stability having been abandoned, many youth have resorted to an instability, one that still wars against the truth in their spirit, that something or Someone has the answers, reveals the truth, and lights the way.