Teenagers can't seem to help themselves. They have blinders when it comes to seeing the future of themselves. Life is simple in some regards. If a person puts in nothing into Life, (s)he gets nothing in return. There is more than a single moment in the present along Life's time continuum. What a person sows, a person reaps.
As one breaks into adulthood, this realization becomes stronger. But, it's usually an ex post facto realization for most teens. That means that living in the moment carries with it some of the consequences of actions taken into a future moment. Jack had a severe case of living blind. Damon seems to have been a little better, but it was based on his faith rather than his experience or good teaching in public schools. Shaughnessy's and blondes become such a great symbol for teens who cannot think past the old motto, "If it feels good, do it." There's a lesson learned from the rocks of nature. Even though time is enduring, what happens today affects the rock's future. A rock is a mountain today, but with erosion over time, a rock becomes merely a shrunken chunk on a plain that any human can raise and look at.
Does it really take a top 10 academic geek to understand one of Life's simplest principles? Getting stuck in the moment should be the behavior of a child, not a late adolescent. Damon, try as he might, could never lead Jack into a realization that a different existence from Shaughnessy's and blondes could be experienced. I guess teens are really so egocentric that they cannot get past their immature selves. So be it. Amor omnia vincit leads down a path of one night stands, literally and figuratively. So be it.
As one breaks into adulthood, this realization becomes stronger. But, it's usually an ex post facto realization for most teens. That means that living in the moment carries with it some of the consequences of actions taken into a future moment. Jack had a severe case of living blind. Damon seems to have been a little better, but it was based on his faith rather than his experience or good teaching in public schools. Shaughnessy's and blondes become such a great symbol for teens who cannot think past the old motto, "If it feels good, do it." There's a lesson learned from the rocks of nature. Even though time is enduring, what happens today affects the rock's future. A rock is a mountain today, but with erosion over time, a rock becomes merely a shrunken chunk on a plain that any human can raise and look at.
Does it really take a top 10 academic geek to understand one of Life's simplest principles? Getting stuck in the moment should be the behavior of a child, not a late adolescent. Damon, try as he might, could never lead Jack into a realization that a different existence from Shaughnessy's and blondes could be experienced. I guess teens are really so egocentric that they cannot get past their immature selves. So be it. Amor omnia vincit leads down a path of one night stands, literally and figuratively. So be it.
6 comments:
Well I guess I do understand your point, however I don't nescessarily believe that teens are just stupid and immature. I think teens have the right ideas, they just push past the extent that they need to be taken to. Yes, I do believe that teens need to realize that ALL decisions affect our future. However, I do also believe in living in the moment and living life to the fullest with no regrets. I see jack's situation and i think his problem was that he wasn't living moments by this mantra he was living his entire life by it. I guess he just took it to far and it proves the saying that too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. I as a teen have done a few things that I probably shouldn't have which is understandable since I'm sure you have as well, but some of the funnest most memorable moments have been decisions made completely in the moment and theyv'e turned into life lessons that I'll have to take with me when I enter the REAL world. My point? That we should live life to the fullest with NO regrets. To me that whole NO REGRETS thing is where the real decision comes in.
wow. down with teenagers... now i think that may be a little harsh. while, yes, teenagers by this age are there one person, and can rarely be changed from the person they now are, who they have become is usually because of the parents. while i know the upbringing and early childhood was not your point, id say the point of down talking teenagers ways may be avirrted to a look into the parental up bringing.
if you were raised by someone else, the parents of that guy "joe" who now sits in a jail sail, or the parents of "roxy", whos dad beat her and never taught her self respect, whould you not be a different person.
you cant lie, you would. while we have chosen the person we have become by late adolesance, being raised by "these" parents limited our choices.
Bill Gates' daughter would not be out on the streets at night walking over to cars, and Whitney Houston's son probably wont be the lead drug busting cop in California; so my point is, if a parent ever wants to judge, critisize, or wonder "what happened to my baby", the answer is usually in the mirror. whether good or bad.
What good discussion. Who lived life to its fullest? Jack or Damon? If one were to say, "Neither," then I don't know what living life to its fullest means. Jack definitely wanted every blonde who used his tab at Shaughnessy's. No regrets, just every blonde. Damon, on the other hand couldn't allow himself out of the mold of his "straight arrow" ways (according to Jack). So Damon's straight arrow ways kept him from having regrets. So, both Damon and Jack lived without regret. They just had different means of getting to the end.
This mantra of living life to its fullest, of course, is impossible. Rather since about 430 BCE people such as Sophocles wrote about the way real life turns out. He wrote "Oedipus the King" in which the character tried to live life with no regrets. But Life didn't play fair with him. At the end of the play, the chorus chants that anyone who can look back on his or her life without regrets should feel lucky because it just doesn't happen. That's how the play ends. That's how a person's life ends today. Life still doesn't play fair in 2007 ACE.
It's also an interesting viewpoint that we are only who our parents make us to be. I cannot count the plethora of counter-examples to that philosophy. Let me start with Oprah. She had humble beginnings and somehow saw her way clear to rise to the top. Let's see... Bill Gates, Nicole Kidman, Paula Abdul. Let's go back in time... Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Mark Twain, Thomas Edison. Ad infinitum.
While a person can choose to be limited by a set of parents' values in upbringing, the choice is still the child's. By the time late adolescence arrives, a teenager must see that he or she has a choice to opt for the limitations set by parents' values or to opt out of the parents' values delimitations. One is truly responsible for his or her own actions.
In the book, the reader doesn't know anything about Jack or Damon's parents. Still one can make judgments about the accountable level of both teenagers. The two young men didn't look in the mirror to see ther parents. They looked in the mirror and saw themselves.
I really don't think i know what living life to its fullest is. I know for a fact that Jack didn't. It's sad how he believed that he did. Yea, he was getting the girls and his little "fun", but that lead him to live his life to the shortest. I would not consider that living the life. Having some moments of pleasure just to find out that his life was almost over. So basically, he didn't get to live a life...just moments.
Then again, Damon never really did anything either. Sure, he had his girl and basketball and studies, but that's about it. When you really start to think about it, "living the life to its fullest" really has no definition.
And as a teenager, i can agree that we can be egocentric. I really can. Right now we believe that all is about us, but does that really deal with our maturity? Well, i guess it does. WE're stuck on what we think and when adults try to help us out by giving us advice on what may help us. We reject it because we're too focused on what WE believe is right for us at that moment.
(it's just amazing how accurate this book is... Not literally, but you can relate to the guys in certain ways for different situations that we might have...)
I totally agree that sometimes teenager can't help themselves because everyone makes mistakes no doubt about it. But on the other hand there are a few teens, like Damon, that do grow out of that egocentric stage and mature to realize there are different aspects and outlooks on life. Jack and Damon are such real characters. They portray real life teens in that, like Jack, many teens do live blind. I also agree that what you reap is what you sow. TOTALLY! And i also think every teen experiences that maybe not as severe as Jack but at on point they do.
I also beleive that a rock is like a person's life. What a person chooses to do or beleive will definitely shape the outcome of their lives in the future.I dont think it takes a geek to realize Life's simplest preinciple. I think that a person's surroundings affect the teens way of thinking. Their friends' and parents' influence is a big factor. A person's beleifs also are a big factor that shapes their dicisions and outlook on life.
Thanks for joining the discussion Lari and Mariela. You have made good points.
You bring up the sow-reap principle. That's one I'm still working on. I see a number of times when I have done something that should have cost me but didn't. I also have seen an equal number of times when the smallest remark or action cost me dearly. Then there's the third law of Thermodynamics-for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. I'm working on that one too. I have seen reactions that didn't match the actions exactly and vice versa. So, I see your point about influence, yet at the same time I don't see the pattern it follows.
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