I’m 20, and that means I hate our modern world. Sure, the modern world has great stuff for people my age like iPods, the internet, running water, and cats, but I hate it for the phrase “youth is wasted on the young”. I hate that phrase because of how true it is. When you’re twenty, you’ve been sucking on the teat of society for two decades. The result is a person who is at the pinnacle of health in their life both physically and mentally: after that it’s hard to stay in shape and your brain cells die. Most Olympians setting records are somewhere around 20. Look around, what are twenty year olds doing? Wasting their peak condition mostly. Working as cashiers, in retail at department stores, food service, baristas.
It’s true: if you’re twenty you haven’t accomplished anything significant. This used to not always be the case. In hunter-gatherer and early agricultural civilizations 20 year olds were doing pretty much everything significant and important. They were raising families, being shepards, farming, they were useful because that’s the age that you’re the fastest, most dextrous, and most quick-witted. You had to be useful at 20, because by that point, your life was half to 2/3 over. Oh sure, twenty year olds can do the same stuff now but A) those things are no longer significant or important, and B) a migrant worker would do those things for half the price, so you might as well go apply to Starbucks.
Why can’t we matter? Why do we all have to be shitheads who can’t contribute anything? Because our world is now so fucked up that even after being in it and just absorbing and taking in everything that you can get your grubby little paws on for twenty fucking years: you still don’t know shit about pretty much anything and everything in the world. So your options are to be insignificant and work a shitty job, or to realize that you can’t matter unless you know more and to continue draining society via universities.
In fact, there’s only one thing left that 20 year olds can still do to matter: beat the shit out of other 20 year olds. What does that say about our fucked up world? That’s why when I have a kid, I’m pushing them the fuck through school and having them skip grades. I don’t care how unhappy they are, and why would I to live with a teenager anyway? They’ll probably just have sex in my house. I’d do it so that by the time they’re thinking, moving, seeing, and doing things at the highest possible rate that they can for their whole life, they can do shit that matters. Otherwise it’s just wasted potential. Youth wasted on a shitty young person.
