It's snowing outside and all winter wonderland-y, which usually puts me in the Christmas mood. Unfortunately all that "goodwill towards men" has left me broke. Goodwill costs money! And I can't I pay back my student loans with holiday cheer. I've tried!
But maybe some internet quotes will lessen my Scroogeyness.
Teens have issues with object permanence. As in, every object is permanent. Every pain is everlasting, every pang of loneliness and despair will be with them for the rest of their lives. Teens can’t process the future...With no real experience other than misery and despair, it is hard to imagine a future that isn’t just more of the same. “He had his whole life in front of him,” confused bystanders might say. And yes, that is exactly the problem.
The (sad, sad) implication is that adulthood is some sort of prison, with all of those boundaries previously tested re-established in an incredibly confining manner. And while society desires conformity, it’s the adult who has the brain plasticity, the support, and the means to actually traverse those boundaries in a sane and balanced way. He or she just chooses not to, and calls this an impossibility. Adam Phillips writes in his essay, “Truancy Now”: “A part of this testing, this experimentation, that begins in adolescence and, if things go wrong, is given up on in adolescence. But the adolescents who give up on this fundamental project in adolescence may turn into adults who secretly envy adolescents; who believe that adolescents are having the best kinds of life available.”
Jessa Crispin, Link
I don't know if you noticed, but there was a quote within that quote. It was like literary Inception...
The twelve-year-old me had different taste in fiction than I do. She loved nihilism and muscularity. Camus was her favorite, but she had a lot of patience for John Updike and John Irving and Elmore Leonard. Suburban Florida was her Paraparaumu. She clung to her books until her fingers turned white. If she showered one morning and woke up in my body, in my city, in my life, she would be really mad at me for complaining. She would be so excited by my apartment in the Village, where I can stay up as late as I want and not go to school the next morning. She would like my clothes. She would love being able to read whatever she wanted, watch whatever she wanted, order pizza at midnight and drink lots of coffee. I know she would think it’s terrible that I don’t wear lots of makeup, shop at Esprit, use mousse, and read Vogue. I bet, if she had a choice, that she would pick the guy I said No to today over the guy the adult me has been missing so much. But in general, she’d be grateful. She’d think I’d been doing a pretty good job.
Elizabeth Bachner, Link
Oddly, I feel less weird taking part in the make believe of religion, than I do in the absurdness of nationalism. At least religion has people who throw lightning bolts and shit.
comment by chris r, Link
Jay Leno, not Conan O’Brien, is the future. Why? Because Leno is more devious, sinister, and craven. These are things to aspire to be. Jay Leno would reach through your skin and deep into your stomach to fetch an undigested Skittle if he were hungry for one. That’s the spirit of Ruthless 24/7 Careerism in a strawberry shell. Make a deal with Russia to not invade Russia and then, when Russia least expects it, invade Russia.
Jim Behrle, Link
If I, 28-year-old Lindy West were to be suddenly transported back into the body of 11-year-old Lindy West, but with my current adult brain, would that not be the creepiest child of all time? I'd just be running all over the place, drunk on gin and tonics, screaming expletives and trying to have sex with adult men.
Gross. Narnia is weird. (I love it.)
Lindy West, Link
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