Why Young People Fill Me With HATE.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

That's messed up. Oof.

My roommate had his first divorce when he was 23. It was one of those things where his girlfriend didn't have her head screwed on right and she kept leaving him for other guys, and his head wasn't screwed on right and kept taking her back. Then they got the bright idea that if they got married, they wouldn't break up again.

She comes over from time to time to see the kid, but apparently Pickles banned her boyfriend from coming over because he does coke.

This makes it a little awkward for me because the boyfriend in question is my friend's bassist. That twist was a bit of a surprise.

[Luna]

Marriage and children are one of those things that should never be rushed into or done because you're supposed to. Thinking like that gets people into stupid messes, very messy messes.

Bullshit.  I got married the first time at 23, and I am now an expert on marriage, having done it so many times, and look how THAT worked out.

How many times have you been married? I only thought it was twice.

4 times.

Twice to Maria, and two other times, the last of which seems to have "taken".

Well, when I end up tying the knot, I know who to ask what I'm doing wrong.

Ask your wife.  At least monthly.  And tell HER what SHE is doing wrong.

Adjust as necessary.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

What Luna said.

Also, unless expressly told otherwise, non-sexual physical contact and occasional romantic gestures go a long way to keep things running smoothly.

[Juana]

Ultimately, I think it comes down to a lack of imagination, coupled with status quo blindness.  "Things will be like this for forever, so I don't need to hurry" along with "er, I didn't really think about that, I guess".

This is because young people are not immune to Sturgeon's Law.  90% of them are fundamentally not that bright, or only bright in specific, constrained ways.  Unless something is handed to them on a platter, with all the information there, the chances of getting them to actually do anything is very slim.

For example: last Sunday was the Chinese New Year celebrations in London.  Yes, a week after the actual Chinese New Year, but whatever.  London has the world's largest Chinatown outside of China itself, and they always put on a good show.  So I researched the programme of events, drew up maps and directions on how to get to China town and printed these all out in easy to understand handouts, which I then placed next to the registers.

I think about four people other than myself decided to go.  Which is more than would have gone if I had just put up a sign saying "New Year trip to Chinatown".  Out of 60 odd students, that seems pretty bad, I know, but when you compare it to our Halloween "party", it was an excellent turn-out.

I cannot imagine turning that down. There's something damn wrong with those kids.

[President Television]

I am now horribly ashamed.

[Cainad (dec.)]

It's like I don't even know what to do with myself anymore. I'm not sure if I ever did.

I go to class, then I find ways to whittle away my time. All but one of my friends has left the school by now, so it's us sad bastards trying to find something to occupy ourselves in Suffolk County.

I don't really attend parties with anyone my age anymore. The very sickness Roger describes has infected them all. There's nothing to do except consume intoxicants until you forget how boring your evening was. I've always found the college parties I've attended to be extremely awkward affairs, rarely worth going.

We're not even the D&D geeks in the basement anymore. We haven't had a game in over 6 months, with many false starts.

And it's not like "well, then stop" is an applicable strategy here. I have stopped, and so has most of the world around me. At this point in my life I have absolutely nothing that has not been provided for me by my parents. There's no where to go except where I've been going.

There's a few bright moments to be had here and there. The Discordian meetups and hangouts, few and far between as they are, represent the highlights of my last 4 years. Everyone there is older than me, even if only by a spare few years, and it always feels like a relief to be around people who aren't subsumed in this... whatever the fuck this quagmire is.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Too tired to say more than that this series made my day.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

I think a lot of these Drones are caught between the desire to be an independent adult and the comfort of dependency. Rather than struggle with the grim job market or the prospect of a lifetime of paying off college they stagnate in a late adolescent cocoon of safety and familiarity. They keep their future out of awareness in a maladaptive attempt to assuage the anxieties surrounding the question of "What do you want to do with your life?" Which really is the question, "What are your values and which are most important to you?" in disguise.

What results from this avoidance is a disconnection from one's emotions and this perpetual need to distract oneself from these highly stressful thoughts. The longer Drones put off grappling with these developmental hurdles the more the person-shaped hole in their soul defaults to being filled with consumerist twaddle. After a few decades they'll be the trainwreck pulling up to the club in their Miata and 19-year-old girlfriend, still running away from the challenges life throws at them.

I feel compassion for them though, because employment prospects haven't been so bad in a long time. Nor have people been flooded with such an overwhelming amount of information about the opportunities and threats to them in life. It might seem preferable to have more choices, but after a certain point it only makes decisions even more difficult to arrive at. Add on top of this the likelihood that they were put on some cocktail of pharmaceutical drugs as children and forced through a school system that teaches obedience—you get some really stunted people. I'm not saying these things are an excuse but I don't think it's entirely these poor schmuck's fault either.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

It's like I don't even know what to do with myself anymore. I'm not sure if I ever did.

I go to class, then I find ways to whittle away my time. All but one of my friends has left the school by now, so it's us sad bastards trying to find something to occupy ourselves in Suffolk County.

I don't really attend parties with anyone my age anymore. The very sickness Roger describes has infected them all. There's nothing to do except consume intoxicants until you forget how boring your evening was. I've always found the college parties I've attended to be extremely awkward affairs, rarely worth going.

We're not even the D&D geeks in the basement anymore. We haven't had a game in over 6 months, with many false starts.

And it's not like "well, then stop" is an applicable strategy here. I have stopped, and so has most of the world around me. At this point in my life I have absolutely nothing that has not been provided for me by my parents. There's no where to go except where I've been going.

There's a few bright moments to be had here and there. The Discordian meetups and hangouts, few and far between as they are, represent the highlights of my last 4 years. Everyone there is older than me, even if only by a spare few years, and it always feels like a relief to be around people who aren't subsumed in this... whatever the fuck this quagmire is.

Cainad, it was a pleasure to spend a couple of days with you.

It doesn't get better. Unless maybe you do something about it. I'm still trying to figure that out.

But, the meat up with you guys in 2011 was the most alive I've felt in the past... I'd say 8 years. Even if I did get a little too... influenced by non-alcoholic chemicals that one night.... And you know, that was the highlight of 2010 too, even though it was 45 min of my time in Boston Common. I see you guys online all the time. And that in this case it somehow makes it ok. Not awkward. I spent a good hour riding shotgun in Eve's car back up to Boston. Felt like we'd been friends forever. I went on a liqour run with EOC. It was all good. I almost pantsed Richter and he almost killed me. It was all good. And hell, Trip and Kirchtorteschwarzesomething.


....


2011 was a good year, no?

[Placid Dingo]

"What do you want to do with your life?" Which really is the question, "What are your values and which are most important to you?" in disguise.

Damn. Been thinking so much about the former without attaching it to the latter. Cue introspection.

[Triple Zero]

We really had the most awesome house there, too. The place was fucking perfect. (It had a porch and everything!)

That said, I really relate to this thread, just like some others. Even though I'm 31 so I dunno if that counts as young anymore but it seems I'm destined to live life at half speed anyway so I guess it does. In fact it's pretty fucking much been the main thing on my mind in the past weeks. I'd write about it but I'm fairly sure a bunch of you would go shut up you privileged twat that's 1st world problems. Cause it seems I made it, been fighting for it the past 3-5 years, probably the hardest thing I ever did, but now I get money from the government, and I found a great volunteer job teaching kids computer stuff for about 8-12h per week. And Tuesday I heard that for now, they're okay with that. Which is good because in addition to keeping my household tidy I don't have energy for much else. And for the first time in my life I actually truly know this is the case because work at the Young Researchers is so much fun, that at the end of the week I know that repulsive feeling can't be laziness like I told myself the past decade, it's my head telling me "ok enough for now, please take a break?" and when I don't listen to that because for instance winter holiday week the centre was open every day and I spent 4x6h with the kids, I literally had to put everything else aside to go for it, spent half a week resting after and thought to myself "yeah let's not make a habit of that" (worth it though). It's hard writing this down cause my best way of coping is pretending it's all not so bad and I'm really just a bit lazy sometimes. The reality is that it's probably slightly worse than what I just described.
But anyway, I got all that and I sort of made it, somehow. It's just me dealing with myself now, but survival has been taken care of. Additionally, even though it's kind of lonely, I no longer am with Kirschtorte, which has the benefit of not sucking the last of my energy into stupid fights over nothing every other day. And with finally my knee being healed enough that I can bike again, there I am, and this is one of those "Okay then, what now?" moments, you know?

Of course there's always things coming at you, it's just that I finally managed to turn down the firehose a bit to a level I can handle. You don't get bored, Never Bored, right? So much stuff to do, [even watching Family Guy DVDs], more than there's time in a lifetime. And though I wish it wasn't so, Roger's right when he says you get just one go. So this is one of those rare quiet points where maybe I can give me some direction, before the next wave comes crashing and sweeps me along again.

In some sense I already did this. I always had this feeling I didn't really want a "pure IT" job, because really while writing code might be the absolute highest form of art (ehehehe), that's why you shouldn't turn a hobby into a job. And then due to all the struggles outlined above, I ended up with the Young Researchers and (re-)discovered that 1) teaching is really fun and 2) I'm really good with kids.

But what now? I want to write a better HTML-for-kids manual, and mostly figure out some method to get them to actually write code--I could do it when I was 10 and so can some of them, but I don't know how to approach it yet, or even what programming language. And then there's some cool shit I want to implement for the PD forum. Some experiments in brewing booze, but alcohol's not good for me so I'm leaving that for a while. Oh and I gotta redecorate my house cause Torte took ~half the furniture with her. And fifty other things that pop into my mind, I will not bother you with. Seems I am really busy?

Still, something is itching, to go outside and put more weirdness on the streets. I'm just not sure how or what yet. It would be really nice if I had someone to do it with, dare eachother a bit more.

Sorry for the discollected braindump, but I really really had to get that out, thanks for listening.

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

aww sorry to hear about you breaking up with your gf, dude.. 

[Luna]

Sorry to hear things got rocky on you, Trip.  You deserve to be happy.  If you're okay getting the rent covered, don't sweat.  And I'm glad you're doing something you enjoy.

Anytime you can swing it and need the break, come on back, we'll see how many spags we can get in one place and have another party.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Sorry to hear about that, Trip.

And to hell with the East Coast.  Come to Tucson.  We know all about this sort of thing.

It's what made us the people we are today.

[East Coast Hustle]

For a given value of "people".