After reflecting on my last post, I wondered if people might dismiss me off-hand, as if I’m merely going through a postponed phase of youthful rebellion. Actually, I wondered that myself.
I never really went through a ‘troubled and rebellious’ phase like a lot of other cerebral, creative, and sensitive types in high school. Sometimes I wonder if I went through it earlier, when I was around 12 or 13, when I didn’t have as many opportunities to act out, and therefore never really got it out of my system, and now it’s maybe sort of erupting after being bottled up for 15 years.
But no. I don’t think so.
Read what I’ve been writing for the past year — or just the past month. Respond to it. Criticize my thinking. Call me on my citations and sources. Point out my logical fallacies and subjective biases. Show me where I can improve. Teach me. Lead me. Impress me with your experience and knowledge, set me straight.
Yes, sometimes I’m testing my boundaries and trying to get a reaction, asking to be put in my place, and in that regard I’m going through a phase of youthful rebellion. But the reaction I want is not merely to me individually – not merely for the sake of getting a reaction. The reaction I’m looking for is to events that are going on in the real world.
But the fact that I don’t get a reaction, nor do I see much in the public discourse that impresses me enough that I could pretend is a suitable reaction, makes me wonder if in some ways I’m even more mature than a lot of the people who are supposed to be teaching and leading and taking control.
In 2008, we’re all adolescents. It takes a lot of maturity to accept that and be open to learning, to accept being wrong, to accept that it’s ok not to understand and that understanding will require a lot of time, effort, and discipline.
It’s Saturday night and I’m up doing my homework — a pretty mature thing to do. Sure, I push my boundaries sometimes, but that’s a part of growing up, which in our complex age is a lifelong enterprise.
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