The problem with getting old...

We just got out of a meeting with some teachers...

It's so funny how generational issues impact the way that people look at things...

We have one teacher on the team who is really upset about grills, the metal carvings that some people (and some kids) wear on their teeth...

I have a ton of friends who have them...I think they're silly...and definitely way more expense than they are worth...but I just figure it's up to people to figure out how they want to look (I'm not a big fan of our school dress code, but I encourage kids to follow it since, of course, I think the education is more important than how we dress)...and I figure if you want to look foolish or shocking, then that's up to you...you deal with the consequences of that and I don't give a shit either way...

But teachers are up in arms...as are most older people about so much in youth culture that they often just don't understand is exactly what motivates such behavior...

Kids do this stuff for self-expression...but they as often do it to get just such a reaction...especially from their parents and teachers, who they, generally, want off their backs...so when they don't get one, then you and they can get focussed on the stuff that really matters in life...

It's so funny...because people don't take the time to think about how their reactions fuel many of the very things that they are so upset about (my friendship with Brandi comes to mind for me, here, though I think I've just kind of given up on being friends with Brandi, at this point, since I just don't have time for the games, anymore), they reinforce the very behavior that they're trying to deal with...

Hillary Clinton, quite the stuffy mom, doesn't realize that her desire to regulate video games like Grand Theft Auto is exactly what motivates the creation and consumption of such video games...the more taboo she makes it, the more popular it becomes...

And so it goes and so it always has gone and so it always will go until people get a clue and stop fueling the very shit they're so concerned about...

In the meantime...I felt resolved, coming out of this meeting...to not become old...

Obviously, I have to age...but I no interest in sounding like such an old nag...

Kids and adults, now and forever, will always make their own choices...it's far more effective to appeal to peoples' reason and conscience, generally, especially in the long term, than to try to regulate their behavior...the latter always being in the moment and as long as there is someone around to enforce regulation, and eventually often wearing off, absent a matter of conscience or reason at stake, and then still wearing off, often, even then...and still more often creating resistance, rebellion, and fueling the very behaviors that regulators are trying to address...

It's the best thing about being young and having a young spirit...letting people be who they want to be...which is exactly what they're going to do, anyway, whether you like it or not...it's just that they are more likely, by far, in my experience, to be closer to better expectations for themselves, the less we regulate them and the more we appeal to their consciences...

What we currently do clearly doesn't work, if our concern is that we don't want to change ships midstream...

And perhaps we're more concerned with self-righteous stands than tangible results...

If so, we should just get used to self-righteous stands that yield no or worse results (better results if we appeal to conscience)...

But just for me, personally...I just can't imagine being that stuffy...and being so concerned with the splinters in other peoples' eyes, as my homie Jesus of Nazareth used to say, than with the beams in our own...

Love,
Ben