Teenagers are caught in a trap. They have the strength and ability to get out of the trap if they want to, but it is illegal for them to do so. So here we have animals caught in a trap that is too small for them, willingly keeping themselves captive to certain extents to appease their overlords. Some manage to broker a deal with their overlords and are granted short little excursions outside the trap, but most simply aren't extended the resources to enable them to take that great leap.
Each and every day they are shuffled through the maze from room to room, sitting here for a while before moving on to sit there fore a while. Some enjoy it, some make the most of it, some don't enjoy it, some can't make the most of it. Those who enjoy life inside the trap are the ones clinging to its sides, ready at the stroke of midnight to rip the veil from their heads and drop their ball and chain. Those who don't enjoy it are the ones who inevitably wear those chains the remainder of their days, whether it is legal or not.
In either case, youth is made to be something to flee from rather than something to enjoy. Youth is a prison for which there are no exits. Even if one were to escape, the mere quality of how many earth revolutions around the sun one has lived to see makes all the difference in how that individual is to be treated in the world of human beings. It has everything to do with whether they are permitted to shake themselves out from under the trap they're born into or whether they are condemned to live inside its boundaries day in and day out, happy or sad, like it or else.
Some teenage animals don't have to be wounded when cornered in the cage, some wound themselves, if only to scare away the overlords trying to corner it, if only to give it some bite. And all this so as to preserve the adult's sentimental idea of children enjoying childhood at all cost to human dignity.
Very well said
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of a TV show on the Cartoon Network about children fighting the adults and their allies. It is more like we created this trap that looks perfect for youth. The problem is that when the youth grows, the trap becomes much too small for them, yet they are still in there. We know about a youth's true potential because we were once like them. It is because a lot of them underestimate their potential (some even this dismiss them completely). Perhaps, if more people realize about their potential than some of those adults would question about the existence of the trap.
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