Re: gilded youth
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Mon, 20 Jul 1998 10:45:57 +1000
> Camille writes that she would like to `toy' with some of my raised
> points. I find the prospect both delightful & at the same time
> slightly alarming.
Sorry. Toy was a pretty dodgy description. I meant I'd like to ... well,
take them apart, see what makes them tick. That's not really the same as
toy.
>
> However. My excitement quickly collapses when she writes:
> `...One thing I do know is as I've gotten older I've found it
> exponentially more difficult to be creative...'
>
> This sounds distinctly ominous. Barely out of her teens -
> & already finding her creativity unresponsive to the whip.
Well, not necessarily. The difference between then and now is that then, I
just had to pick up a pen and all sorts of things would flow out,
unblocked. But now ... I do actually *need* a whip to thwack it out of me.
To me that's a big difference.
> They sound an even feebler bunch than the average crowd
> of teenagers - brain washed by `society', browbeaten into apathetic
> conformity.... I realise this is the pervading ethos of the vast
> majority of 13-19 year olds, but - for Cripes sake - she tells
> us they were members of a drama class ! The Young Oliviers
> de nos jours, huh ?
No, no ... you miss my point. This is a group of people who were *bursting*
to be creative! They were like a boiler ready to explode, with all the
rivets popping out and oozing steam. The reason they didn't let off this
steam is for those reasons I mentioned - in the school environment,
creativity is seen as wrong. It was doubly difficult for the few boys in
the class, because as the song goes - `boys don't cry' - and likewise, they
find it even more difficult to express their emotions. Mr Bowman, if you'd
seen the literal tears that flowed out in that class, you'd stop looking at
adolescents as a bunch of semi-insane larvae with baby brains somewhat
analogous to baby teeth - only there to fall out and be replace by the
`real' thing as soon as they are old enough to be jaded.
> Incidentally, Camille, telling people to fuck off IS the convention
> expected of this age group. Usually uttered in a surly, listless,
> baffled, apologetic mumble.
If you won't toy with my ideas I see no reason for going out of my way to
toy with yours.It was George Bernard Shaw who said that youth is wasted on
the young - and I'm sorry, but it's a typical old guy thing to say.
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
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