A note for the teenagers:

I'm not going to turn this into a rant, because It would too easily get out of control. I was watching Politically Incorrect today, and it's teen week. The topics being discussed are far less important that the manner in which they were discussed. I'm not discluding myself here, but teenagers are so self-righteous. Everything is so plain and simple to them. Right is right, wrong is wrong, love is love, hate is hate, and their opinions are so fierce and unyeilding.

Yet they're at an age where they don't have the capacity to form a real opinion. No matter how smart or how mature, they don't have the breadth of experience or the focus of wisdom to rationally decide anything. They're pawns of their social order, and little more than a mass of pre-programmed responses. Even the most intelligent and articulate among them fail to understand that there is an entire universe beyond their perceptions, and that ignorance is a tangible barrier for them. It's almost as though they have a collective mental block that stops them from seeing more than one side to a story.

Ignorance is the hallmark of humanity. There is so much that we don't know, and so very much that we decide, individually, is unimportant or even unknowable. The only thing that separates a teenager from a young adult is the understanding that we're ignorant.

I'm by no mean at the pinacle of where my life will take me, but it's a staggering leap between 16 and 21, and it's a leap they don't even know that they'll make. Even the few teenager who claim to understand the state in which they live are lying. Even their modesty and acceptance are... forced. How did I and my friends, as young adults, come from that? What triggers growth into adulthood, when and why do you finally learn to say "I'm so fucking wrong, I have no idea what's going on, and I have no opinions that are worth anything"?

We are who we are, and the learning is where all the good stuff is. I don't bear teenagers any grudge, I just hope they get it all figured out okay.