Failure: The Next Generation

"....all men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his
course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride."
~Sophocles

Please note the attached image. This is an old ad on the F train (though I had seen them on a number of trains). It's one of several ads that depict a group of teens in some routine of their daily lives. On his clothing, one of the teens is wearing an emotion or trouble he is experiencing. The ad goes on to say "If only the signs were this easy to read". These “signs” vary from one ad to the next. This one says "Feeling Worthless" while in other ads the kids’ clothing says "Feeling Lonely" or "Depressed", "Angry" etc. You get the point.

Here's my problem: I know there are valid emotional problems that come about from natural causes (chemical imbalances, bla bla bla). But I believe that there are more teens feeling alone, depressed, hurt, left out and afraid than we are allowing ourselves to see. And the majority of these teenagers aren't feeling these things because of physical/biochemical causes. They are feeling this way because of what they go through in their day-to-day lives; specifically, what we allow society--and ourselves--to put them through. And now some “genius” presumes to to suggest "We're here…we can help you…we can cure you". It's a representation of society trying to fix teenagers, which is asinine considering society is responsible for breaking them. Society and its negligence has caused these problems. Now it wants to fix the victims rather than going to the source and undoing the cause of the problems.

When I was a teenager, I felt alone. I also felt abandoned. I felt left out. I felt scared. I was a teenager who few, if any, adults made time for. I was a teenager with strong Catholic morals which were never supported by the society in which I lived or encouraged in my school or shared by most of my peers (because they, themselves lacked encouragement). Because I felt so alone, I naturally felt scared because the world is a frightening place and I felt I was in it all by myself in it. Maybe if we provide a more civil environment for teenagers they wouldn't feel these things. But no, rather, we sexualize them, we trivialize them and we capitalize on them.

Rather than show them that they are beautiful individuals we throw them in a basket with the other robots we've created and tell them "You're just a number. You're just like everybody else. But here, have a new pair of sneakers and you'll feel all better. Have a new MP3 player, have a new phone and you can pretend that you're different from everybody else. But you're really not. You’re just another robot". We convince them that they NEED to buy a product and that they can't live without it, then we wonder why they never learn to manage their money. We wonder why they are so selfish and materialistic. We expose them to adult-like relationships on TV (their peers in adult-like relationships) and make them believe that they have the capacity to have such a relationship and that they SHOULD be in such a relationship. Then when they try and they fail over and over again we wonder why they have no self esteem. We wonder why they do such extreme things and we refuse to realize that they are compensating for their low self esteem. We wonder why girls are getting pregnant younger and younger and we wonder why boys have more promiscuous tendencies more frequently. We pressure teens into society’s “try, fail, try another” relationships, they grow up with this divorce mentality and we wonder why the divorce rate is so high when they grow up. We do so many things to turn them into dull and depressed and worthless people and then we dare ask why teenagers are feeling dull, depressed and worthless.

The commercial monster encourages them to idolize pop stars. We have them believe these people are living glamourous lives, when their lives are actually devoid of honor, dignity, class, courage and a moral code. We let Brittany Spears dress like a 6-dollar-hooker at awards shows and by allowing that we tell our kids that it's okay. We let the modern music culture demean and degrade women and that's as good as telling the male viewers "It's okay" and telling the female viewers "This is what you are, deal with it" We give our kids cellular phones and prevent them from being comfortable with their own company by connecting them to everyone else. We let the TV baby-sit them and shape their ethics. We let them stay online for hours and deprive them of the people skills and social skills they should be learning. We fail them over and over and over again and we have the nerve to look at their problems and ask "Why?" What a very sick thing that is!

As long as you continue to plant good seed in bad soil, your crop will always be bad. Change the soil and you'll see the harvest improve. If you fail, then you fail the children and you fail the future which we place in their hands. Have courage. Do right. Live right. And Free Your Mind!

-eXcaliber