I sat back today and listened to the full album 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' by the Beatles. Today is the 50th anniversary of its debut. It reminded me of what we are when we are young.
When we are young, say between 14 and 30, we are creative, funny, energetic and profound. Our minds reel with ideas. We are brave and indestructible. We think that we can do anything and often try to. We're idealistic and optimistic. We wear silly hats and search for an identity. We want to be original but we also want to be part of the crowd. We pine over love and relationships. We scoff at the generation that brought us in this world, who control the world that they brought us into. We mock the music, the art, the clothes, the styles that preceded us, not understanding how ridiculous our styles are and just how fast it will go out of fashion. We don't listen to people that can help us and don't think anyone is listening to us. Everything seems to be unfair. We think that absolutely everything should be different, yet we get upset if the littlest thing in our young life changes. We are dramatic, overly dramatic. We are irrational even illogical. We are dangerous to ourselves and everyone around us. We are cruel and uncaring and unsympathetic. Most of all we are scared. We look for some sort of assurance that everything will be alright. We try everything not worrying that it might kill us. All we want is acceptance. So we go out in the world to make our mark to cut out a little niche of life to call our own. We say we have a plan, but we don't. We say that we know what we are doing but we don't. We say that we will be better than our elders but we won't. We say we know what we want but we don't.
I think that is the way of almost every youth in the world and has been for all time.
Someday some young lad or gal of today will sit back and listen to an album (whatever the technology is) on its 50th debut anniversary, and they may write something about youth. About how the album (whatever the technology is) reminded them of it. And I'll bet you that they write almost exactly what I have written here.