Jesus walked on water. Chuck Norris walks on lava.
Read if you're bored, this is basically just a vent with no solid ground (except the part about Chuck Norris)
There's this little thing that most people try to do in high school which involves trying to skip crucial steps that lead to adulthood. This happens at every stage in life, really. Little kids start wanting to do EVERYTHING on their own. Pre-teens get upset that their parents tell them when they can go out with their friends and that jazz. Teens just want to be separate entities (while still reaping the monetary benefits, of course). This is a normal occurance in our society.
And once you cross the threshold into actual adult life, the opposite happens. Mid-life crises and the like leave you yearning for your youth. The days where you could go to concerts without your ears hurting (or your legs or back hurting too). The days where you could go out with your friends on the weekend and only have your next Rhetoric paper to worry about instead of a spouse, 2.5 kids and bringing home the bacon (and eggs, milk, toothpaste, etc).
With age comes responsibility and ocassionally wisdom. I think this is the main allure to skipping steps in life. Some people really just want to be that guru on the top of the mountain with the most meaningful and profound answers that just send other's minds into a whirlwind of enlightened ecstasy. Others, usually the ones we consider childish or immature during our "teen" years, don't have this objective so they live their lifes step by step and the knowledge stumbles into their lap instead of being hunted. The well-adjusted of this group lead full lives with few regrets and solid reasoning.
This is all just speculation, really. I have no studies or numbers to back this up. No control or variable groups to look at and study. These things just seem to be, in my eyes, how things work.
I'm one of the progressive types. Always skipping ahead to get more information and knowledge while missing crucial bits that were happening at that moment. Always trying to be more mature to get older friends when I had no idea how to interact with people my age. I grew up in a town smaller than most public high schools (2500 people total). I don't know anything of diversity and I can only do the best I can when I behave to show that skin color, religion, ethnicity or what have you really don't matter. To me, they don't, but I am ocassionally so intrigued that I will tend to stare or just want to ask the stupidest, possibly offensive questions.
This is probably going to drive me mad. With my hopes of one day serving the people of the United States in some way, shape or form, I can't risk going back at some point later in my life to pick up on what I've missed. I will no longer have that umbrella of "college experimentation" or "youthful indiscretion" to allow me to claim "I didn't know any better."
So what should I do? Start drinking heavily on weekends (like so many of my friends)? Start doing coke and heroin, drop out of college, join a bowling league, start listening to massive amounts of Dokken and start writing for Vice Mag (Vice Guide to Iowa City??) and kill myself in seven years? Or do I keep going on this way, possibly regretting my leaping later?
Luckily, I have Thanksgiving break (thank the lord the Pilgrims beat the living fuck out of the natives) to ponder all of this (and to ponder sheer awesomeness personified: Chuck Norris).
At least I can strive to be more like Chuck Norris with this beard I've been managing.
There's this little thing that most people try to do in high school which involves trying to skip crucial steps that lead to adulthood. This happens at every stage in life, really. Little kids start wanting to do EVERYTHING on their own. Pre-teens get upset that their parents tell them when they can go out with their friends and that jazz. Teens just want to be separate entities (while still reaping the monetary benefits, of course). This is a normal occurance in our society.
And once you cross the threshold into actual adult life, the opposite happens. Mid-life crises and the like leave you yearning for your youth. The days where you could go to concerts without your ears hurting (or your legs or back hurting too). The days where you could go out with your friends on the weekend and only have your next Rhetoric paper to worry about instead of a spouse, 2.5 kids and bringing home the bacon (and eggs, milk, toothpaste, etc).
With age comes responsibility and ocassionally wisdom. I think this is the main allure to skipping steps in life. Some people really just want to be that guru on the top of the mountain with the most meaningful and profound answers that just send other's minds into a whirlwind of enlightened ecstasy. Others, usually the ones we consider childish or immature during our "teen" years, don't have this objective so they live their lifes step by step and the knowledge stumbles into their lap instead of being hunted. The well-adjusted of this group lead full lives with few regrets and solid reasoning.
This is all just speculation, really. I have no studies or numbers to back this up. No control or variable groups to look at and study. These things just seem to be, in my eyes, how things work.
I'm one of the progressive types. Always skipping ahead to get more information and knowledge while missing crucial bits that were happening at that moment. Always trying to be more mature to get older friends when I had no idea how to interact with people my age. I grew up in a town smaller than most public high schools (2500 people total). I don't know anything of diversity and I can only do the best I can when I behave to show that skin color, religion, ethnicity or what have you really don't matter. To me, they don't, but I am ocassionally so intrigued that I will tend to stare or just want to ask the stupidest, possibly offensive questions.
This is probably going to drive me mad. With my hopes of one day serving the people of the United States in some way, shape or form, I can't risk going back at some point later in my life to pick up on what I've missed. I will no longer have that umbrella of "college experimentation" or "youthful indiscretion" to allow me to claim "I didn't know any better."
So what should I do? Start drinking heavily on weekends (like so many of my friends)? Start doing coke and heroin, drop out of college, join a bowling league, start listening to massive amounts of Dokken and start writing for Vice Mag (Vice Guide to Iowa City??) and kill myself in seven years? Or do I keep going on this way, possibly regretting my leaping later?
Luckily, I have Thanksgiving break (thank the lord the Pilgrims beat the living fuck out of the natives) to ponder all of this (and to ponder sheer awesomeness personified: Chuck Norris).
At least I can strive to be more like Chuck Norris with this beard I've been managing.