Salt

I've been in a pretty pissy mood lately, so I've decided to write a pretty pissy post. I'm going to attempt to flesh out an epiphany of sorts that I had a while back. Admittedly, this realization came to me while I was in a pissy mood, so it may come off as a bit salty, but I've also found myself to agree with this point in non-pissy moods. It may not be necessarily groundbreaking, but it holds some merit nonetheless, and is stated as follows:

Seventeen year old's are pieces of shit.

I know, sounds harsh, but I really don't mean it to be as condemning and condescending as it appears. It's not to say that seventeen year old's are detriments to society and inherently evil, but more to say that seventeen year old's are just generally shitty people... I'm not really making a good case for this "not condemning and condescending" thing, am I? Alright, how about this.

It's not their fault that their shitty. It's just the way things are. Seventeen, or basically whatever year that you're a senior in high school, is just the prime age for shittiness. It's not done out of malice or spite, but out of the sheer lack of experience and knowledge of how not to be shitty. Consider the social position of a typical seventeen year old: too old to be treated as a child, yet too young to be considered an adult. That's a prime recipe for shittiness. The world is infinitely more complex than a child can comprehend, and seventeen is right about the age when people start to figure that out.

Remember learning how to play basketball? (Or guitar, or anything, really) Remember how you were generally shitty at it until you got a feel for how to dribble and shoot? Or even if you were a natural at it, dunking on fools since day one, do you ever remember noticing improvement in your game as you worked at it? Being able to read defenses better, seeing passing lanes more clearly, making decisions more quickly? It's pretty safe to say that anyone who's ever tried to learn how to play basketball, became less shitty of a player as they gained more exposure to the game. The same basic principle applies to seventeen year old's, sure they're shitty, but it's mostly because this is the first time they've ever held a basketball.

Let's say someone gets their drivers license at seventeen and their parents manage to get them a car. They know how to drive, they're pretty good at navigation, and they're a pretty safe driver, so everything's set, right? Well what about gas? A large part of their previously free spending budget just got taken away by one of the realities of owning a car, so either they can find ways to expand their budget, or they can learn to manage what's left of their budget and adjust their lifestyle accordingly. For some seventeen year old's, the former option is as simple as asking for more allowance, which can to more of a financial strain on the family, and for others it means taking on more hours at work, which can affect other areas of life such as academics or socializing. The latter option (managing a reduced budget) may include cutting back on things such as eating out, going to movies, or ordering hookers. But that's easy, everyone knows cars need gas, and that's usually something people take into account when considering a car. That's also just the tip of the iceberg. The minutia of having your own car can include simple things like keeping the car clean, closing the windows at night, learning where it's best to park in certain areas, knowing not to park behind your dad's car when he has work in the morning, knowing to leave your keys in an accessible place in case someone needs to move or use your car (at home), checking your tires, monitoring your oil levels, keeping in mind how much weight you're carrying in the car, and remembering not to hit people. It can all add up pretty fast, and that's still just one aspect of your daily life, and a seventeen year old is bound to be shitty at some aspects of it before they learn how to manage it all.

I know, some seventeen year old's are probably out saving  baby goats in Zimbabwe or something, so maybe my original claim that seventeen year old's are pieces of shit was taking it a little too far. I guess a more accurate statement would be that seventeen year old's are shittier versions of their adult selves. That's usually the case as I see it, anyway. I'm sure some people find ways to be shittier versions of themselves as they get older. But even as I look back on my seventeen year old self, I find that I was pretty shitty at being me. People around me probably haven't noticed some grand transformation, but rarely in life do things magically get better all of a sudden. Progress is usually a road traveled upon, not a room entered (that was kind of a good metaphor, no?). So generally, as people become less seventeen years old, they become less shitty people.

The caveat to that rule is that you don't become less shitty just by breathing for more consecutive days, you actually have to work at it. American society has a pretty nice deshittifier that they like to call the school system. Yeah, I know the education system is flawed and needs major improvement and all that noise, but the concept of being in school has value beyond what is being taught in the classes. Did you ever notice that all kids are a little weird? Maybe not in a "we need to get him checked out" kind of way, but just little reminders here and there that they've only been doing this life thing for a short time. You may not consider their actions to be weird, but if you run into a twenty five year old who has the social awareness of a twelve year old, you instantly classify that as amiss. The mindset of a child is very different than that of an adult, even if the only difference may be the capacity to understand what is expected of a person. Institutions such as school and sports help us realize and understand those expectations, and our reactions to them shape how we're perceived by society. Learning subjects such as math and history serve their purpose, but learning to function in society is an equally valuable experience.

This is starting to run long, and I'm losing focus, so I'll wrap it up. If you're seventeen, you're shitty, at very least relative to how not shitty you'll be one day. It's not your fault though, the world is set up for you to be shitty at seventeen, it's normal and expected. It is, however, your job to learn how to not be shitty. So do that. Twat.

C