Warning: The following article is not about agnosticism, or religion in general. It is my philosophy on something, but it doesn't have to do with god.
As Socrates once said, “The only true wisdom is in knowing that you know nothing.” This is a quote that I find to be very true in a broader sense; however it also neatly sums up my attitude towards being a teenager and going through puberty, etc. My view on things shouldn’t be hard to guess, I’m sure that most mature adults would agree with me on this. Teenagers, as a general rule, are idiots. That’s all there is to it: Overall, that particular demographic just isn’t very bright. Though I’m sure there are plenty of very intelligent teens out there, what I mean is that very few teens possess any real wisdom or maturity. As teens, we overreact, we exaggerate, we get emotional, we let our emotions speak for us. We believe every damn thing that our bodies and our instincts tell us to. With teenagers and to most human beings, one's actions (at the time of their happening) seem perfectly reasonable to him, for the most part… And yet, adults and children and even other teens, upon seeing what teenagers do, can often unanimously see that a teen is being unreasonable. But the teens who are doing it don’t think it’s illogical, to them it makes perfect sense… Do you see where I’m going here?
This is why I stated my beliefs about absolute truth before I wrote this, because they apply to so many other things. To make a point akin to that of the mentioned article, my logic on the matter basically goes like this: Since adults almost unanimously say that teenagers are unreasonable or illogical, this is probably the case in most scenarios. Also, I and most teenagers do not realize that they are as the others say they are, and it genuinely appears to them that they are in the right. Therefore, as a teenager, my perception of the world is very likely skewed from the true reality, as an effect of puberty and/or a developing brain; thus causing me to be susceptible to logical fallacies without even knowing it. So if that’s the case, my every opinion could be false: By this, of course, I mean that they are likely derived more from emotions or prejudice than from sound logic. And the proof is all around me. When I’m angry at someone, I think they’re a bad person; when I have a crush on someone I think they’re a saint; and when I’m sad about something, I think it’s the end of the world. These, of course, aren’t really thoughts; they’re feelings. They’re my intuition, my instinctive assumptions about the world, based entirely off of feelings and emotions, as in: Not fact.
So after discovering this… Well, first allow me to say how I did figure this out. It’s not a fun story. I may not have mentioned before that I am NOT fond of my childhood, and that is mostly because it largely took place before I came up with the philosophy above, and acted on it. So anyway, I guess I had my true phase of teenage rebelliousness and emotional imbalance when I was in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade. It was then that I hated my parents, that I would get depressed, that I would always listen to my emotions and think I was right, and most importantly, it was then that I would believe that a simple crush was really love.
As you can imagine, this mentality is never a healthy one. I’ve heard people say, (mostly theists I would guess, but not all spiritual) that if you listen to your heart, then you’ll know when you’re in love. I guess I wouldn’t know if this was true, but I’m certain that it’s not the right idea to give people, because the heart’s voice sounds a lot like that of the genitals, and vice versa. Maybe my story would convince them of just how harmful this mindset can be, because I used to buy into it, and it sure came back to bite me in the ass.
I'd had crushes before in my life, I suppose. They weren’t that serious, really just me having a certain preference towards a girl, but it was never a very strong emotion… It was never enough to make me actually flirt with them. It wasn’t until 6th grade that I actually “fell for” a girl. Truth be told, I barely knew her at the time, and if I had before liking her, I doubt I’d have been glad for the fact. I’m friends with her to this day, (god I hope she doesn’t know about this story) so don’t go thinking I hate her or anything… But also, trust me when I say that she was insanely annoying, at least at the time, and definitely not my type. The problem was that I got a crush on her before I knew this.
If any of my previous “fancies” had the same personality, then those crushes would have probably gone away in no time, but I guess that was before hormones had really kicked in. It was quite sudden, that I was overtaken by puberty, which is likely what caused such a drastic hold to be taken on my emotions… I couldn’t tell you exactly what happened inside my head, but I can tell you this: What it lead to was not pretty. I felt completely and madly in love with this girl. Though I was aware of her flaws, even on a conscious level, they didn’t bother me at all. It’s not like they were minor ones, either, they were like bloodstains on a white bed sheets… And I don’t mean like pinprick bloodstains, I mean the kind you leave after a bullet wound to the jugular. Again, though, I was crazy for her in the same was that hyenas are crazy for meat. I lost control.
So there’s your setting: I’m in 6th grade, have what is by far the most severe crush of my life, have no experience with them, and I seem to have lost my sense of better judgement. What happens? Why, the very worst, of course. My emotions for her got so out of hand that I honestly thought I loved her. I was thinking in terms of how many months before it would be okay to ask her out, when before I had decided that I wouldn’t date anyone before I was at least 14. And not only was I obvious with my feelings, I let them define me. I planned on marrying her, for fuck’s sake! I was so convinced of my feelings for her being so true and permanent, and that they would never go away, and that I had found true love, blah blah blah, etc, etc, etc. Again, when I would think of all her flaws and go, “Hey, wait a minute, isn’t this the kind of shit that should be annoying the living fuck out of me right now?” The reply was, “Well, yes it is, but you see, she must be an exception.” Notice the lack of explanation for why she should be exempt from the rule, I just knew that it didn’t bother me that she was annoying, and went straight ahead to assuming that it was because she was so great, not that I was so screwed up.
Now a few months into this awful affair, the whole damn thing came crashing down on me like a ton of aborted fetuses on a pro-life convention. It was practically overnight that I realized the fact that I didn’t like the girl after all, and what happened after that is something which I can only speculate the cause of. Basically, as well as deciding I didn’t like her, I quickly developed an intense hatred for the girl I had thought I was in love with just days before. I don’t know if it was me directing my anger (for my feelings being wrong) at her, or if it was like my mind was somehow over-compensating by hating her too much after liking her too much… Whatever the reason, the point is that I decided that I hated her overnight. To this day, I feel guilty for doing what I did, and reacting so poorly to my emotions… I think that after I got over her, I was really mean to that girl… Not only was it unjust of me to take out my emotional frustration on her, but it was also cruel because I think she liked me at the time, and I thought so back then, too! Maybe she started liking me during or after my crush on her, but either way, I feel like I lead her on by doing what I did, and the guilt (like that of being the immature child I was) will probably haunt me for a very long time.
But move on from the issue of how much of an ass I was, and allow me to pull out the real meaning of this story. That whole affair is what taught me what puberty could do. It showed me how much it could skew my perspective on life, and how shamelessly my subconscious would lie to me, to get me to like a girl (Well, among other things.) Ever since that crush of mine, I have had the same opinion that I do now about puberty. It really opened my eyes to the truth of puberty. I don’t know if everyone else is just less open-minded, or if they weren’t lucky enough to have such a grand example right in front of their eyes. And as a side note, that’s really what it was; it was like a huge example laid out before me, that demonstrated the true nature of my mind, and all of its lies. Anyway, though, to put a long story short, this brief little anecdote is how I learned that puberty screws with my perception, and ruins my better judgment.
Anyway, after I discovered this, I naturally made some drastic changes to my views and to my life. Hell, it’s not like I was just going to let something that had clearly fucked with my entire head do it again! I immediately took the knowledge and experience I had gained, and made it into a new philosophy… Which I still carry with me today, to some degree. For the entirety of my 7th grade and 8th grade year, I had a crush on a single girl, and I hated just about every moment. But I’m glad and, dare I say it, proud that I hated it, because that signifies to me that I knew what was going on. It means that I didn’t forget that crushes were temporary, that I knew my feelings weren’t real, and that I didn’t really love the person. It also means that, knowing all of this, I didn’t cave in to my instincts, because it was tempting to cave in, and believe what I felt; and yet I still chose to remember what I had learned, and stick to logic. So for almost two years, I just held out, hoping my crush would abate, because I knew that my feelings were insincere, and harmful to me, more than anything else. The result was that, with all this lack of hope, when I found out that she was secretly dating my best friend, I didn’t cry about it. I was shocked, yes, but I was also happy because it caused me to finally get over the girl (I don’t know how, maybe my subconscious has some common sense, and knows when to cut its losses). I was miserable when I liked her, being so conflicted with myself, not being able to stop wanting her or to get what I wanted. It was a true triumph when I came out of the most difficult crush of my life knowing that I had won round two with my hormones.
As a sort of epilogue to that story, I did kind of beat myself up for not knowing about the thing that she and my freaking best friend had going, and I was frankly unsure what to think of it. If you knew either of them, you’d find it hard to believe too. I was also forced to re-evaluate my ability to judge people, and my ability to believe see the truth, rather than what I wanted to see. There were a million conflicts inside my head at the time, but at least I’m glad that none of them were “Wow, I guess I really didn’t love her after all.” I was wrong about her, but I wasn’t wrong about me. Also, reader, I am happy to inform you that I was right to not think the world of her, because she actually turned out to be quite a shallow person after all.
Oh, but I digress. By now I’ve said the point a million times, that as a teenager, one simply can’t trust his feelings. This applies to crushes and to any emotion at all. Like for instance, other popular ones are hatred of parents or authority, depression or nihilism, and the idea that everything you do in middle school is going to count for the rest of your life. I still battle with my emotions, and try to apply logic wherever I can. In a sea of emotional turmoil, the only thing that I can ever be sure of is that logic will never point me in the wrong direction, or deceive me, or be unable to support me. So let me end this essay with a message for any teens out there, here’s three pieces of advice: Anything you think you know because of your emotions, be prepared for it to be proven wrong. Please know yourself, and know yourself well. This is something that I truly had to master, and that everyone should, because you need to know when you're thinking with your logic or you're emotions, you need to know when you are being biased by something, and the list really goes on into eternity; so understand yourself as well as you possibly can, because to help yourself you first have to know yourself. And finally, if you must argue with someone, please prove them wrong, don’t just say they’re wrong. Back your damn argument with facts and reasoning, not on what you feel! (see next article, which is to be called: How to Argue with Me)
Sincerely,
The Ellipsis
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