Re: BANANAFISH digest 248

eryk charles arthur salvaggio (ecs1@keene.edu)
Fri, 20 Feb 1998 05:33:24 -0500 (EST) 

Leonard Cohen has been a favorite of mine for quite a while...I'm gonna 
flip through some more pages tomorrow, its been a while.

Secondly, about blind teenage spirituality, I agree with you completely 
(AntiUtopia) however, you also seem to imply that Holden and Franny's 
issues are of an "Immature" spiritual nature...I have to differ. I think 
its a very bad idea to label all teenage spirituality as incomplete; 
I think that is, in part, what let to Holden/Franny's breakdown to begin 
with. Look at Teddy; or the young Seymour Glass. 

I think that adolescent spiritual issues are oftentimes the most pure 
because they are allowed to be felt without the corruption of the 
"accumulated knowledge" that you speak of...being unaware of the 
inevitable unpleasantries that occur later in life can only serve to make 
that feeling more intnse, and, unfortunately, more difficult. 

I'd venture to say that the knowledge of adulthood only helps one DEAL 
with spiritual epiphany rather than make it more real...

They say the 11-year old teenage crush can hurt as much or even more than 
a divorce. Its all subjective...a spiritual epiphany in Holden's case 
meant he had nothing to compare it to, making it more intense than 
anything he would/could ever feel again. 

All the knowledge of adulthood, to put it quite drastically, only serves 
as an anaesthetic, in my opinion...novacaine for the soul. Because I 
won't say that an adult epiphany is any more complete than a teenagers, 
or less complete, I do think that it hits younger people a lot harder and 
in a much more emotional fashion. In adults, they have knowledge to 
balance it...and while able to understand the same concepts, if one has 
"The Understanding" when one is 15 it will have a remarkable effect on 
the teenager but only a subtle one on an adult...not in the level of 
realization, but in the power that it has to devestate one's 
conciousness. 

Thats my opinion, anyway, though the psychology of spirituality is a very 
under-studied field, I think, except for people who don't believe in it. 

As for this:

			<MaTRiX>WWW.ONE38.ORG</MaTRiX>
		    <a href="http://www.one38.org">TOYS!</a>
    [INLINE][INLINE][INLINE][INLINE][INLINE][INLINE][INLINE][INLINE][INLINE]

It's my signature file. It's a web site I'm running. Visit it, if you 
will. 

-ecas