When we are young we are foolish and naive, that’s a given – that is part of the definition of youth. But when we are young and we know we are foolish and naive are we then still young? Or is that – again by definition – part of the ageing process?
1: We are young, we are naive and yet we think we are old and wise.
2: We are young, we are naive and accept these terms as fact whilst we strive to both better ourselves and shelter our fragile selves behind the silk-curtain of foolishness.
3: We are young and we are no longer naive. Foolishness is now something we may or may not choose. To be foolish is now a choice. A choice we make in full understanding of what it is to play the fool.
Are these the three stages of growing up?
Can you ever really be young and jaded? Words that when apart are a complete oxymoron, together make a kind of oxy-anomaly that almost serves to re-define our generation.
Now I’m not saying – like many do – that ours is a generation of lost innocence, because I don’t believe that’s entirely true; what I am saying is that we, as a whole do not live by the same definition of ‘youth’ those generations before us did.
Thirty years ago a child gets in a fight, the teachers pull him apart from his opponent and send him away to get the cane.
2011, a child starts a gang-related scuffle, threatens to stab the other pupil, the teacher intervenes and for the next five minutes has to stand in stunned silence as said child reads them their bill of rights and reminds the teacher they have no authority on which to touch them.
“I know my effin’ rights.”
Now I’m not saying we should bring back the cane, I don’t believe in that at all! But there’s gotta be something to be said for the amount of knowledge of the world of the law and its loopholes and the continuing arrogance many of our generation and the next seems to possess.
The best thing about getting rid of our Labour Government..? We don’t have to deal with all that “PC” crap anymore!
If anything it’s all gone too far the other way…
I look around me at the world we live in today and it’s absolutely fucking fantastic! It’s incredible all this amazing stuff we’ve created. I could sit for hours and complain at length about the ridiculousness of our London Underground – it’s delays, it’s structure and positioning, prices, the fact that the jubilee line just doesn’t actually seem to work… – but at least we have a London Underground. That is trains, running under the streets and the rivers of London, every day, with only a few hours rest in between. How flipping lucky are we!?
And yet we choose to bitch about it because we think, well, now we have it, we deserve to have a better one, it should work better. I’m not one of those people who bitches about how ungrateful we all are because I don’t think it’s wrong to want to live in the manner at which we’ve grown accustomed and to push it forward – that’s how civilisation thrives and evolves – but take a step back for a minute and think about how easy it would be for me to hop on a train right now and end up in Paris in two hours and you start to gain a bit of perspective.
Our Grandparents didn’t live in a world where everything was so easy – or even possible – it’s got to be a revelation for them! Even our parents had to readjust to mobile phones, something we grew up knowing about, and now the amount of seven year olds I’ve seen with a phone BETTER THAN MINE positively astounds me!! What happened to get set chocolate factory? What happened to beanie babies and stickers with the furry animals; yoyo’s, slap bands and the aliens every child in the 90’s was convinced could reproduce!? Now it’s all about the newest Wii game and the ipod touch.
And fashion? When I was 6 I was running around in a big coat made of all the colours of the rainbow, little jeans with footballing grass-stains and a bag of penny sweets from the corner shop. WIN!
But now it’s all about fashion, even for the 5 year olds! When I used to help out at a Brownie pack, 7 year-olds were coming in with Uggs more expensive than mine! And the other day I saw a tiny kid wearing a little military-style denim jacket I can’t believe they even sell in those sizes! People don’t like to take their children out to the park, people don’t wanna play board games. They HAD to make Eyetoy and Wii fit because they desperately needed something that would get kids moving whilst still believing they’re just inside playing another computer game.
When did kids stop caring about being kids!? There are children living in Africa and the slums of India who have mire vivacity to be young and alive than we do! All we want to do these days is grow up.
Wow, don’t I sound old. Look at me going on about “my day…” as if it was an age away!
And so I guess we come back to my generation again, as the generation of the jaded youth. That oxy-anomaly that seems to sum us up so well…the last of the 90’s kids – a dying breed.
What can we do?
While I was forming the idea for this post I had my ipod playing when all of a sudden an old Frank Turner song came on (Jeez he’ll be sponsoring this blog soon!) and the chorus was exactly what I’m on about to the extent some of the words are even the same!
Here it is…
“Because I’m young enough to be all pissed off
But I’m old enough to be jaded
I’m at the age where I want things to change
But with age my hopes have faded
I’m young and bored of being young and bored
If I was old I could say I’ve seen it all before
In short; I’m tired of giving a shit”
What he’s talking about here is jaded youth. It’s that point you get to where you still want to do something about all the shit in the world but you now have enough of a grasp of the way it works to see your old ideologies won’t ever work. So what do you do?
Well I write songs about it. So does Frank. So do The King Blues. Rise Against. System Of A Down. Rage Against The Machine. The list goes on…
But in the end, unless we get Itch or Frank into parliament, what real good can we do? How can we really shake things up on our own? It’s a tough question and nobody’s really found the stone-solid answer yet – I’m not even sure there is one – but we still continue to do it because we can. And to a certain extent I think we do it because we feel we have to.
I do occasionally wonder why it is I care so much when so many people seem not to care at all. It would all be a hell of a lot easier if I didn’t give a shit, but I do. And you know what I’m glad I do. Now it’s all about taking that next step from 2 to 3 and then onto the “old” which Frank sings about in his song. (It’s called “Once we were Anarchists” by the way) And when I take that next step, which I feel myself edging towards at an increasingly fast pace, I want to make sure I don’t lose any of that sense of passion and wonder and exuberance I rely so heavily on today, because I think it gets harder to keep hold of as you grow up, but it’s that little spark of creativity that will really make a change.
When we are young we have the incentive but not the tools. When we grow older we learn the tools but we lose the incentive. I wanna make sure I don’t do that because I really do want to make a difference in this world and I can’t stress enough how much faith I have in my generation to really do it and to really achieve something great.
I know I mention him a lot (too much?? Nah, he’s a total genius!) but there’s another song Frank Turner wrote, a few years after “…Anarchists” only this time instead of brash angst there’s a kind of strength to “Love Ire & Song” that really rings powerfully every time I hear it.
And again, it’s about taking that spark of youth and letting it in once again and fighting the good fight and knowing we will probably lose but absolutely doing it anyway!
That is what I want to hold on to. That is what I’m trying to say, and in the end when all’s said and done, that is what will make all the difference.
So for once, let’s be young, let’s be crass enough to care…let’s get out on the streets and be proactive and put that jaded youth to one side and just be young. Let’s live and learn and love and unleash some of that inner hippie that HAIR does so well when you’re up onstage singing “LET THE SUNSHINE IN!” and and jumping about. Let’s really grab every opportunity we can and use it to make a real difference to the world. Let’s be heroes and martyrs and radical thinkers and let’s mark that change with our own stamp.
Of youth, and honour, and optimism, and equality and power and strength and the right to be whoever the fuck you wanna be and do whatever the fuck you wanna do and love whoever you wanna love and, and,
and…
Well, take it away Frank…
Well we’ve been a good few hours drinking
So I’m going to say what everyone’s thinking
If we’re stuck on this ship and it’s sinking
Then we might as well have a parade
Cos if it’s still going to hurt in the morning
And a better plan’s set to get forming
Then where’s the harm spending an evening
In manning the old barricades…
