(no subject)
The thing about growing up is that for the first 15 or so years of your life you are rarely more that 2 years old. Allow me to explain. For me, at least, there was always a constant feeling of being in flux. As if both the past and the future were inperceptable through the haze of an incomplete brain chemistry. While in grade school every time I looked at something I had completed a year or so earlier there was a feeling of disconnect. Time was so slow that the person reflected in whatever rudimentary expression I had committed to paper seemed to have so little in common with me in my current state. When, as then, you are changing so much, in so little time and your decisions rarely have any sort of long-term implications is it any wonder that one should feel like an individual stranded in a singular moment? Unburdened by history or the ramifications of an uncertain future? I will admit, I had a peaceful, trauma free child-hood which certainly nurtured such a state but surely, while it was aided by such idyllic innocence it was not dependent upon it.
I think about this now because, with only a few more months left as a teenager (really a superficial milestone, I know) it is odd to me that being nearly 20 does not make me feel old. What really gets to me is that I can look back upon the last four years of my life now and feel a connection to it. I empathize with my distant self in a way that is totally alien to me. For the first time in my life of 19 years I am 4. Certainly, this person communicating with you now has been refined during this time. I am not by any means accusing myself of stagnation. Rather its as if I have finally been rid of the noisy clatter of childhood and adolescence which keeps one constantly shifting. I can look back at myself since the choices I made during my sophomore year of high school and relate them to current situation with startling clarity. While the years before that laid the base for my present self I see four year ago, the first sign of a clear direction in the building. Its a very relative thing. From a deterministic point of view clearly the phenomena is at best illusory and at worst stupid but I still feel older than I ever have before, a statement that should not be overlooked despite its overbearing sense of obviousness. I would not expect this to be the end of it however. Surely, this extension in my concept of self is simply a reflection of the slowing of biological processes. As social experiences accelerate in this transitional period of young adulthood there will doubtlessly come a time where I can again draw the line at a different point in the past and look beyond it in bemusement and bafflement, at the happenings of a person who cannot possibly be me.
I think about this now because, with only a few more months left as a teenager (really a superficial milestone, I know) it is odd to me that being nearly 20 does not make me feel old. What really gets to me is that I can look back upon the last four years of my life now and feel a connection to it. I empathize with my distant self in a way that is totally alien to me. For the first time in my life of 19 years I am 4. Certainly, this person communicating with you now has been refined during this time. I am not by any means accusing myself of stagnation. Rather its as if I have finally been rid of the noisy clatter of childhood and adolescence which keeps one constantly shifting. I can look back at myself since the choices I made during my sophomore year of high school and relate them to current situation with startling clarity. While the years before that laid the base for my present self I see four year ago, the first sign of a clear direction in the building. Its a very relative thing. From a deterministic point of view clearly the phenomena is at best illusory and at worst stupid but I still feel older than I ever have before, a statement that should not be overlooked despite its overbearing sense of obviousness. I would not expect this to be the end of it however. Surely, this extension in my concept of self is simply a reflection of the slowing of biological processes. As social experiences accelerate in this transitional period of young adulthood there will doubtlessly come a time where I can again draw the line at a different point in the past and look beyond it in bemusement and bafflement, at the happenings of a person who cannot possibly be me.