The Fall Teenagers Can't Avoid

The spirit of adolescence bleeds into a lot  of topics, but we're going to start first at a   13-year-old's birthday almost a century ago. From  a family of farmers, Albert's birthday brought   him a new life in the city, where both he and his  father were about to begin work on a construction   site. But just as Albert arrives, so do new laws  in his area, mandating that he remains in school   until his late teens.

So on his 14th year of life,  instead of a wage, Albert gets an allowance. And   when the school year begins, he looks around  his classroom of working age kids. And not him,   not even the teacher quite grasps where all this  is heading.

Because Albert and his classmates   sit at the forefront of an entirely new rupture  in culture. A term for this stage wouldn't even   emerge until decades later. Teenagers.

It's a real  life risky business. A teenager holds an alcohol   fueled party for hundreds of Youth crime again  in the spotlight. Turns to 17year-olds now make   up 13% of all criminals.

Please mean to be Ryan.  It means to be [ __ ] me, [ __ ] Do whatever the   [ __ ] you want all day until you die, [ __ ]  I don't give a [ __ ] What is worth more,   art or life? Is it worth more than food?

Take  your take off your glasses and apologize to   us. I'll say sorry, but I'm not taking off  my glasses. Now, teenagers of course always   existed.

The puberty was always a thing. Even  Shakespeare made references to the stormy nature   of the youth. But it was really the industrial  revolution that crystallized the stage of life   before society's eyes.

A live stage during which  a cohort of same-aged peers are gathered daily in   an institutional setting like a school over the  course of a key developmental period. This became   a formula for adolescence and one you ought to  remember for later. A global experiment was soon   underway with psychologists and sociologists  swarming in to understand the phenomena.

This   is where adolescence became synonymous with the  storm and stress. A time marked by mood swings,   risktaking, and conflict. In the late 1930s, the  word teenager began to appear in the cultural   lexicon.

A network of fluid brains with disposable  income that was founded in the schoolyard had   spilled over into the streets. And of course,  who was there to pick up the fluid brains and   disposable income? Your boy capitalism, the  machine that directs attention, fixed its   gaze.

By the 1940s, marketers had fully coined  and capitalized on the term hawking lipstick,   records, and cars to what had already become a  multi-billion dollar right of passage market. A   profound cultural twist was brewing both in film  and more notably in literature, featuring who a   few regard as the first prototypical teenager,  Holden Corfield. After getting expelled from his   fancy school, Holden wanders the streets of New  York, trying to make sense of a world that keeps   pushing him towards adulthood.

But before leaving  Pensy Prep, his school, he reaches out to an old   history teacher he likes. But he finds himself  wrapped up in a lecture about buckling down and   planning for college. Later, he seeks solace in  the company of his former English teacher, who   also urges Holden to apply himself and maybe even  look into works of literature.

Holden feels that   all this advice and direction only really serves  the people giving it. Like if I do what they say   just justifies the decisions they've already made.  Building an idea for Holden that even the kindest   of adults have agendas.

Now these interactions set  the theme for the rest of the book. Every attempt   at a connection Holden makes with teachers, dates,  strangers all crumble under the weight of their   greater plans for how he should orient himself.  He goes on a date with a girl at a skating rink,   but can't escape slipping into conversations  about careers and his capacity as a wage earner   and husband.

Later, a heartfelt conversation with  a few nuns he meets keeps him slipping into worry   because as a non-atholic, perhaps he is somehow  offending them. Society's obsession with becoming,   social labels, and expectations all corrupt  Holden's desire for genuine connection,   which makes everyone else seem so fake. Now, a lot  of the adults in The Catcher in the Rye were from   the silent generation, growing up during difficult  times like the Great Depression and World War II.  

They reached adulthood when the dust began to  settle. And whilst still facing wars to come,   they actually maintained the best mental health  into adulthood compared to any generation before   or after. They married and had kids in their very  early 20s, younger than any other generation.  

Their mental health, even the ones alive during  CO, was seen as the most resilient. These were   a generation that grew up quick, and that was  especially distasteful for Holden, who spends   3 days rogue in New York, drinking, smoking, all  in an odyssey to find meaning. Becoming a husband,   father, and an employee, all at age 22.

You see,  what Holden preferred to do was a bit different.   He longed to sit all day watching kids run and  play along in a field of rye. And every time one   of them would fall over the edge off the cliff,  he would be there to catch them.

Holden wanted   to be the ultimate Peter Pan, which I think is a  good comparison made by our boy JP in catching the   kids at their most potential and saving them from  the freef fall to come that will land them all in   the certainty off the ground, the fast approaching  becoming of adulthood. Now, for the young boomers   seeing this on their high school reading list in  the '60s, there was something attractive about   Holden's thinking towards the world. Why are we  barreling towards becoming in a world we had no   choice in making?

Now, this way of thinking helped  orient greater society towards the birth of the   trademark classic teenage move, the counterculture  movements, protests, civil rights marches, women's   rights, LGBT activism, Woodstock 69, boomers  showed up in bulk. philosophy that expanded your   mind beyond traditional values and chemicals and  compounds that made doing so a whole lot easier.   Youth transformed into a political identity. 

Don't trust anyone over 30 wasn't a joke. It was   philosophy. A philosophy without much foresight,  though, because the oldest boomers will soon be   80.

And that makes this era the first time in  history where all living generations have shared   the same cultural phase of life, teenagehood. Now,  of course, boomers weren't the first to go through   puberty and teen angst, but they were the first  to grow up in a world where being a teenager was   a recognized social identity. A time to grapple  with becoming and whatever the hell that actually   means.

Backed by dedicated schooling, youth  targeted media, allowances instead of wages,   music, fashion, slang, and eventually mean girls.  And now, because every generation after could   point back to their own turbulent teen years,  societies began standardizing milestones. The   driver's licenses, proms, the phone, and now the  social media account, reinforcing adolescence as a   global expectation.

And so, the first generation  to publicly rage against becoming adults did   eventually become adults. Suck. They grew up, got  jobs, bought homes at [ __ ] attractive prices.  

Some went from marching in the street to  trading on the street. Others went from   psychedelic anti-establishment hype to becoming  CEOs of multinational corporations. But like   all things in nature, counterculture eventually  evolves, dissolves or gets subsumed into culture,   thereby creating a void, one that calls for a new  systems of thought to correct and counter the old.  

So while the boomers rallied to take over  the institutions, Gen X were a little more   skeptical of institutions themselves. They saw  that like nature, the economy was always prone   to storm. Living through the worst one since the  Great Depression, they learned that political   institutions can't always be trusted.

Media  was often sensationalized and even marriage   as an institution began its ongoing crumble.  For a young Gen X, becoming had an aura of   betrayal. So they refined apathy and irony and  brewed those into grunge music, MTV, Rat Tale,   and The Simpsons.

A show which at its core became  the first prime time series to openly mock the   institutions upholding the Western American  dream. Gen X pioneered doing things yourself,   startup culture, and carved out identity in a new  emerging institution, the internet. At this point,   it's interesting to note that as the pendulum  swings between culture and counterculture,   the sentiments of each new generation seem,  oddly enough, to be influenced by the ones two   generations before.

And it makes sense. Boomers  largely raised millennials and Gen X's are largely   parenting Gen Z's. So, the boomer optimism, the  belief that you could bend the world to your will,   perhaps passed down to young millennials because  this is where we saw a real hike in individualism.  

Phrases like you are special, you're  a go-getter, and you should go and get   were common for millennials who were raised under  the banner of hard work securing prosperity. And   hard work they did. Millennials achieved higher  education rates, higher median incomes, and fewer   of them were below the poverty line compared to  earlier generations.

But many reaching adulthood   felt a lost piece of that promise. Because  whilst non-essentials were getting cheaper,   essentials like housing, child care, and leisure  were ballooning. With both partners' income now   required to just sustain a household, millennials  found that while they had been promised the   ability to have time, a career, and a family, they  were often forced to pick just two.

Now, this is   very relevant to the backdrop Gen Z's are becoming  adolescence in. Like Gen X's, many Gen Z's also   experienced existential threat, a recession, and  a tech burst. The older Gen Z's were taught early   in primary school about the oncoming climate  catastrophe and grew up around anxious parents   and job losses during the financial crash.

Not to  mention something else beginning to shift around   2008 with its full implications becoming clearer  by 2012, right when the first wave of Gen Z were   hitting adolescence. Remember our formula from  the start of the video? Well, a new institution   had begun to throw its full weight.

Instagram,  Facebook, Snapchat untethered social media from   the family computer into becoming extensions  of the self. For the first time, an entirely   new institution began to shape youth over their  developmental years. And unlike family, religion,   school, or government, this institution had its  own ideas of what was valuable.

And in hindsight,   it becomes obvious. The data is also quite clear  that around 2012 was when we started seeing a   dramatic unequivocal spike in adolescent anxiety,  depression, and other mental health issues. For   Gen Z, it wasn't just about puberty or rebellion  anymore.

It was the collision of mixed messages   about value, a crumbling trust in institutions and  economic prospects that couldn't guarantee their   fundamental needs. Meaning gets man through,  writes Victor Frankle. But in a world drowning   in information, meaning became diluted.

There  was no clear guide in where to find it. It was   proven one day in one corner of one institution  than disproven the next in another corner. Nile   began to bloom at rates higher than any prior  generation.

The angst for Gen Z was concerned   more with scrambling for belief structures that  may perhaps lead them through to securing the   more fundamental aspects of their needs hierarchy  like safety and belonging for their future. Where   are they to look to find the certainty they  so desire? With no god and no clear economic   narrative to secure these needs, the angst of  becoming for the current adolescence going into   Gen Alpha is the angst surrounding the often  subconscious search for what to believe.

People   see rock and roll as as youth culture. And when  youth culture becomes monopolized by big business,   what are the youth to do? Do you do you have  any idea?

I think we should destroy the bogus   capitalist process that is destroying youth  culture by mass marketing and commercial paranoia   behavior control. And the first step to do is to  destroy the record companies. Do you not agree?  

Up until now, it seems every generation of  adolescence inherits this double bind. Admire   the adults and institutions that can guide you  while distrusting the ones that feel corrupted.   Gen Alpha barely remembers a time before co. 

Their early years were steeped in screens, iPads,   Zoom, FaceTime. So they step into adolescence  a little differently with the oldest now around   Holden's age at 16. And whilst this happens, the  institution of social media also matures, becoming   a more curated and personalized experience,  sorting the feed into a marketplace of thought   with leaders clased into different corners.

Place  your thumb on the oracle and it will read into   your soul. For a young alpha or Z, it can sense  and answer a question before they even know how   to phrase it themselves. And because it's built to  keep you there, it serves a comforting digestible   truth, a breadcrumb trail that pulls you forward. 

For Holden, phoniness was a teacher with an agenda   when all he wanted was just to be heard out.  Today, the system does something subtler. It   explains you back to yourself, often better than  you could.

And with the sense of being listened   to, you become the one doing the listening. And  whilst what's in front of them feels all the more   obvious, the desire for alternative viewpoints  simultaneously shrinks. Hypnotized by the hum   of the oracle, they're groomed towards  subscribing to a preloaded way of seeing,   ready assembled by a crowd that they may never  meet that's splintered across the cloud.

This   pattern of behavior is reflected in the work of  philosopher Simone Whale, who wrote about what she   termed the uprooted state. Simone observed that  people often tend to be quite willing to trade   in their autonomy to think in exchange for the  thoughts of the collective which satisfies within   them a more fundamental desire to belong. So in  this way the childlike wonder of an adolescent   becomes currency at its purest form for a growing  arm of capitalism that's racing to solidify a   fixed landscape of thought.

Perhaps this is  why we feel as though Gen Z is so internally   divided in their camps of belief compared to  other generations before. There is just too   many ways to package an idea. Holden Corfield  may be rolling in his grave.

Because honestly,   all Holden ever wanted was someone to just hear  him out. And he screams on behalf of every kid who   still needs the same. The teenage brain is built  to push radical ideas around like clothes in a   change room.

And that malleability in thinking  is exactly what makes teens best adaptable to   securing their feet in their 20s and 30s. The  Oracle, however, slick enough to fool an adult,   can make any young person feel they've cracked  it all far too soon. The more certainty they   pour into that comforting worldview, the harder  the rug gets yanked from under their feet later,   as the real world with real dilemas, people,  groups drawn in all shades of gray passes them   through.

And it's not just the alluring sense of  certainty from these algorithms that trips them   up. It's also the reaction from outsiders. When  your half-formed idea meets any strong judgment,   it's quite common for you to back yourself even  harder.

Winnott and Votssky would argue that teens   instead need a space to safely risk being wrong.  A holding environment, as Winnott would say,   scaffolded just enough to keep growth within  reach. This is where ideas remain drafts and   not verdicts.

Without this place, teens will  search elsewhere, more likely slipping off the   Ryfield altogether and into the arms of the oracle  that awaits them. Catch yourself, says Holden,   who might also agree that the strongest antidote  to the angst of what to believe, especially for   adolescence swimming through today's information  age, is to catch and guard their childlike   curiosity. Just as the capitalist system insists  that you sort out your employment destination,   the algorithm of belief is equally eager to sort  you into an ideological box.

But as Lavos Zizek   puts it, real freedom in these systems begins  the moment you realize that you have the liberty   to prefer not to decide so soon. Simone Whale  approaches the same idea from another angle.   People who feel uprooted in meaning often grab at  the nearest ready-made collective.

But a person   rooted in themselves can pause, look around,  and choose where to grow next. Intrinsic value   and worth should be inherent to being human, not  attached to wherever your beliefs or employment   lands you. And history shows us clearly that  assigning value to a person based on their masks   is a deadly game that rarely ends well.

As much  as adults love introducing themselves by their job   title or belief structures, the self and its work  is inherently separate from both. You have the   freedom to visit but not be fully absorbed by any  one camp. Free to consider every magnetic pull,   every seductive answer, every ideological  rabbit hole, and calmly say, "Thank you.

That   was an interesting perspective, and I'd prefer  to keep looking. " The idea that there's always   one correct answer is something that we model  to kids in primary school, but it really should   stay there. You know, if every time someone asks  you a question, you try to say the right answer,   your entire life is a test.

You can choose not  to hold a rigid opinion on something that doesn't   warrant one. Because when a moment does come, when  you do need to decide, you'll be more attentive to   the shades of gray within the cracks of the data  alive in front of you, rather than relying on some   preloaded, decontextualized schematic inherited  from elsewhere. Towards the end of the book,   Holden looks down lovingly at his younger sister,  a ball of potential, the only one in the story who   accepts him exactly as he stands in front of her. 

She too will one day need to trade in this lens.   Holton stands for the quiet collective wish to  protect our childhood potential. The sire every   teenager lets out as they peer over the cliff  and realize that much like the electron, they   too must sacrifice all those parallel timelines of  potentiality for a single concrete path forward.  

It hurts to give up everything you could have been  before you've even figured out who you are. What   am I supposed to become in a world I can't predict  6 months from now? And what if I become the wrong   thing?

I remember similar thoughts standing in  a hotel room after a night of getting marinated,   staring out at the skyline of office buildings,  thinking that's soon to be my destination. I   wasn't quite sure about falling over just yet,  becoming something before I even knew who I was.   I could have done with a catcher in this concrete  rye or a Peter Pan or maybe another shot.

Kids   see adulthood as a destination because we all  talk about it like some finish line or a place   to arrive. But honestly, does any adult ever feel  like they've arrived? That feeling quickly slips   away.

Even those in the steadiest professions have  to deal with the ground constantly shifting under   them and the same old question of where to next.  And when elderly adults look back on their lives,   gerontology researcher Dan McAdams finds they  often structure their experiences into distinct   chapters or phases rather than as one straight  narrative arc like I was first this then I became   that. So when the panic finally settles and you  look back over the decades, perhaps Victor Frankle   gets closest to the mark when he says, "What we're  really becoming here is simply more responsible.

"   responsible for finding meaning wherever we  are placed. Responsibility is like the only   reliable metric that widens with age out in the  world and inside our heads where the prefrontal   cortex continues wiring deep into our 20s. To  be certain about what to believe or become is   an unnecessary burden on any tiny plastic brain,  especially when life always has the upper hand   in where you end up.

What actually carries you  forward then is attention to what's real right   in front of you and what needs it the most. Simone  Whale calls this attention the rarest and purest   form of generosity and treats it as a moral act  rooted in your commitment to the faces around you,   not distant ideas or big picture labels.  I really recommend you check her out.

The   more of this attention you invest, the more the  world opens up to you. The angst around careers,   phases, passions, people, beliefs, and jobs all  become costumes you wear as the world nudges you   onward. So, the only reliable basket for your eggs  surround that of responsibility for the organ that   shapes your reality, for the body that moves you  through it, for loving your friends, your family,   and eventually your community.

And simply showing  up wherever you are needed. Everything else from   people to cities is mostly circumstance. attention  rather than controlling the ship you're on helps   it steady.

A steady ship can sample every port  without the rush to dock anywhere too soon. And   when the vessel finally sinks, as every ship  does, you'll realize there was never really a   cliff to tumble over. Only an ever widening sea  of responsibility.

And with nowhere to arrive,   eventually you merge with the water and  continue in the entropy of becoming.