To be inside the mind of a 13 year old boy is to be trapped in a palace of horrors. Few women realise this. Most men, once grown up, forget this frightful experience and never go back to that dark corner of their psyche.
What people call adolescence is, to me, the sudden unleashing of our genetic code. You go from being a child to (wanting to) being a man. And the man that your inner genetic code tells you to be, was programmed over a billion years to do just one thing - survive.
Ten thousand years of civilisation is but a scratch on a billion years of genetic learning. Those of us who deal with machine learning know that the algorithm will learn exactly what you feed it. For a billion years our genetic code was fed death, destruction, violence, trauma and uncertainty. And why go back ten thousand years? Till a hundred years ago, average human life expectancy was 28 years.
So how would you program an automaton that went suddenly from being a child in the care of his family, to a man who needed to build his own family and hunt, gather, protect. Any way you did it, it would not be pretty. In the jungles of Africa or Asia, or the bitter cold of Europe, love, compassion and tenderness would not even help you survive, leave alone thrive.
Love works for a peacock that evolution has armed with beauty and flight. What attraction does the 5-foot-something hairless human ape possess for the human female, if not power? You have to be able to fight (to protect), you have to be able to provide (usually by killing or grabbing).
Cut to 2020 and this game of power plays inside the mind of every innocent child rapidly losing his innocence. The world around him, the only world he has seen, is a gentle place. But the code has stayed the same. The code messes with his mind, and screams at him to turn into a person that he knows isn't the kind of person he wants to be.
To walk with the brain of a human male on your shoulders is a heavy burden. And each one of us who has tamed that beast and turned it into a respectable citizen deserves appreciation. (If no one else will appreciate you, look into the mirror and tell yourself that you have done well.) As you walk down the street with a male head, it notices everything in its field of vision. Every shiny, expensive object. Every delicious piece of food. Every hint of cleavage. Every curve and sinew of every woman and man ahead of you. When driving through familiar territory, it builds a map as it goes, recording every change in landscape or shopfront. You are doing one thing and your subconscious mind is always doing another.
To tame this beast through your teenage, so you do not turn into a vile adult who goes around snatching what he likes and touching or gawking at everything he finds attractive, is a feat of immense courage. Every day you struggle with morality. Is it wrong to be attracted to women? Is it bad to think of sex? You wake up in cold sweat - your sleeping mind imagined kissing someone who your waking mind considers a respectable friend - and then for a week or two you hate yourself.
Every teenager has been given a caterpillar of a mind that they are carefully preening into a beautiful butterfly. Onto this mind we pile on the pressure of studies, the screaming of parents, the bullying of peers (who are facing the same demons), and all the bling and marketing in the world. The 13 year old genetic male mind is programmed to leave home, but yours is staying put; that itself is worthy of love and respect.
Many don't stay, as the back-alleys and railway platforms of Indian cities bear witness to. And yet, it is a miracle that most of these abused and abandoned young men are not turning into serial killers or rapists. Inside of their minds, without help from adults, they train themselves every day to be decent, hard working men.
If you want to build a better world, let a teenager know that they are loved and accepted. That they are amazing just the way they are. That it is OK to have strange thoughts inside of them. That they should not hate themselves because of new feelings that they (as yet) have no control over. That as long as they know right from wrong, and do not let bad ideas translate into action, they are fine. You do this, and they will hopefully not grow up into adults who need help and counselling to accept themselves.
I'm sure girls go through equally tough times. But I have no lived experience of womanhood. From what I've heard from friends who've shared, while men are about power through strength, women are about power through control. That desire to control can turn their young mind towards constant manipulation, while a lack of control can lead to lifelong insecurities. Eventually all of this can be dealt with at the right time by constantly reassuring girls, telling them that they are loved, accepted and beautiful.
(Disclaimer: This is a weekend brain-fart. I have not studied psychology, leave alone child psychology. I have never even read one of those pop self help books like Men are from Mars. All of what I say is based on my own observations, conversations, deductions. In other words, these are the musings of a random dude on the Internet.)
What people call adolescence is, to me, the sudden unleashing of our genetic code. You go from being a child to (wanting to) being a man. And the man that your inner genetic code tells you to be, was programmed over a billion years to do just one thing - survive.
Ten thousand years of civilisation is but a scratch on a billion years of genetic learning. Those of us who deal with machine learning know that the algorithm will learn exactly what you feed it. For a billion years our genetic code was fed death, destruction, violence, trauma and uncertainty. And why go back ten thousand years? Till a hundred years ago, average human life expectancy was 28 years.
So how would you program an automaton that went suddenly from being a child in the care of his family, to a man who needed to build his own family and hunt, gather, protect. Any way you did it, it would not be pretty. In the jungles of Africa or Asia, or the bitter cold of Europe, love, compassion and tenderness would not even help you survive, leave alone thrive.
Love works for a peacock that evolution has armed with beauty and flight. What attraction does the 5-foot-something hairless human ape possess for the human female, if not power? You have to be able to fight (to protect), you have to be able to provide (usually by killing or grabbing).
Cut to 2020 and this game of power plays inside the mind of every innocent child rapidly losing his innocence. The world around him, the only world he has seen, is a gentle place. But the code has stayed the same. The code messes with his mind, and screams at him to turn into a person that he knows isn't the kind of person he wants to be.
To walk with the brain of a human male on your shoulders is a heavy burden. And each one of us who has tamed that beast and turned it into a respectable citizen deserves appreciation. (If no one else will appreciate you, look into the mirror and tell yourself that you have done well.) As you walk down the street with a male head, it notices everything in its field of vision. Every shiny, expensive object. Every delicious piece of food. Every hint of cleavage. Every curve and sinew of every woman and man ahead of you. When driving through familiar territory, it builds a map as it goes, recording every change in landscape or shopfront. You are doing one thing and your subconscious mind is always doing another.
To tame this beast through your teenage, so you do not turn into a vile adult who goes around snatching what he likes and touching or gawking at everything he finds attractive, is a feat of immense courage. Every day you struggle with morality. Is it wrong to be attracted to women? Is it bad to think of sex? You wake up in cold sweat - your sleeping mind imagined kissing someone who your waking mind considers a respectable friend - and then for a week or two you hate yourself.
Every teenager has been given a caterpillar of a mind that they are carefully preening into a beautiful butterfly. Onto this mind we pile on the pressure of studies, the screaming of parents, the bullying of peers (who are facing the same demons), and all the bling and marketing in the world. The 13 year old genetic male mind is programmed to leave home, but yours is staying put; that itself is worthy of love and respect.
Many don't stay, as the back-alleys and railway platforms of Indian cities bear witness to. And yet, it is a miracle that most of these abused and abandoned young men are not turning into serial killers or rapists. Inside of their minds, without help from adults, they train themselves every day to be decent, hard working men.
If you want to build a better world, let a teenager know that they are loved and accepted. That they are amazing just the way they are. That it is OK to have strange thoughts inside of them. That they should not hate themselves because of new feelings that they (as yet) have no control over. That as long as they know right from wrong, and do not let bad ideas translate into action, they are fine. You do this, and they will hopefully not grow up into adults who need help and counselling to accept themselves.
I'm sure girls go through equally tough times. But I have no lived experience of womanhood. From what I've heard from friends who've shared, while men are about power through strength, women are about power through control. That desire to control can turn their young mind towards constant manipulation, while a lack of control can lead to lifelong insecurities. Eventually all of this can be dealt with at the right time by constantly reassuring girls, telling them that they are loved, accepted and beautiful.
(Disclaimer: This is a weekend brain-fart. I have not studied psychology, leave alone child psychology. I have never even read one of those pop self help books like Men are from Mars. All of what I say is based on my own observations, conversations, deductions. In other words, these are the musings of a random dude on the Internet.)