OPINION

Mid-Teen Crisis!
By: Nancy M., Westgate CVI, Thunder Bay, ON

"High school...It's like...A bunch of people...And, you don't know... What they're gonna say or do...About you...You know...Doing stuff".

This observation was stated by a friend of mine one evening, as she clutched at the earth as so not to fall off, and lose the vicious battle with sobriety which she was pursuing. I laughed, of course, as I always do when I'm in a shocked state of agreement with something. I thought about what she had said, and as I almost always do with everything I perceive, I picked it apart and analysed it until it almost became the incoherent babble that it had set out to be. The way I see it, this could be said for the system of the universe, as all things revolve around all other things. The outcome of everything you do depends on others. The genius of what was said was in the innocent simplicity of the thought. Perhaps if all of us thought in such a basic way, the complications of everyday life would fail too complicate us as they do. If we could all accept that we must join alliances with all types of people, we would not be so confused as to where we fit in...because we do not, nor do we have too.

Perhaps once science and technology, which has equal numbers of protestors as it does fans, has us living in a satisfyingly plastic world; as soon as we all look like models, all have machines making everything perfect, and every country has so many nuclear weapons that there is no longer a point to war, we can begin concentrating on personalities. Maybe, in a sense, materialism will be the downfall of materialistic ways.

In the depths of everyone's mind lurks the yearning for approval, and the need for equality; to fit in. Giving in to peer pressure, or as I have come to label it ‘personality suicide', is something of a categorizer of people. It is not simply kids being kids, but determining people as either the leaders or the followers of the world.

I can’t help but wonder what society would be like if everyone listened to themselves and only themselves. If no one had a single thing to model themselves after. These two types of people spend all their time wondering either what's wrong with them, or what's wrong with everyone else.

So, I must say, teenagers these days have a mountain of stress to climb in order to become successful adults in a world that adds another foot or so of plastic dirt every day. All of us, to achieve anything at all, naturally have to ‘do stuff', but the question is:

Who is going to say or do something about it?; and what impact will it have on us as we become older?

The easiest and most sanity saving solution to these thoughts is the only answer that will ever get you anywhere in a place where everyone is judging you constantly; and that is: Who cares?!