H O O K E D - Our Youth...Lost?

Our Youth...Lost?

Written by Loh Huilin

"Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans," John Lennon once told the world.

It's on the tip of everyone's tongue - we are losing our youth, if we have not already lost it. We laugh, have fun, mug (colloquial slang for studying hard), graduate with a pang of nostalgia, and off we are into adulthood, within the dog-eat-dog corporate world.

Is this how we lose our youth? Have we indeed lost our youth through our rigorous education or through the so-called training of the mind (some may use the less politically-correct term "brainwashing")?

Perhaps so, or maybe it's something that gradually leaves us while we move beyond our adolescent years, even if there weren't any "brainwashing" to begin with.

        Or you may think we never really lose our youth.

        Well, I cannot disagree with any of the abovementioned statements. They intertwine in our lives and cannot be reviewed or analyzed in isolation from one another.

        For instance, my close friend currently studying in SMU's newly established Law Faculty underwent a "Freshmen Team Building Camp". It was similar to what some of us went through in Outward Bound School, except that it was packed with even more tedious and exhausting (both mentally and physically) activities. Success in the form of winning was most critical.

        The purpose? To train students for the challenges th

ey may face when they enter the workforce. No, you probably won't have to climb poles or build rafts in your future office, but you will likely need to work in teams effectively regardless of the amount of pressure you face from your boss.

        Does this not steal our once stellar-idealistic concept of what success means? Camp and team-building activities simply meant having fun and laughter at that time, creating memories of youth that will last a lifetime. But when the sour tinges of adulthood and working life are peppered into this (mis)conception, some may say that our youth dissolves and we become adults.

        Similarly, we all know how university-offered programs not only serve to prepare us mentally for work, but also in our outward appearance as well. The "fist-in-the-air" thrusting that exerts our self-given right to free expression is placed aside for the less-tolerant appearance-wise demands of the adult world. Pencil skirts, ties, uncomfortable high-heel shoes, make-up. You know the like.

        By being "placed aside", I include the possibility of permanently losing those youthful habits of ours.

        But let's be fair, nothing is ever solely one party's fault. Arguably, we could well lose our youth even without university life. The moment youths recognise the importance of money, especially in the adult world, where you could no longer depend on your parents, they will do whatever it takes to get that money. Since money is most prevalent in that adult world, youths thus enter it almost naturally, eventually. Well, if you can't beat them, join them.

        Am I then suggesting that our maturity is inevitable and will happen without any stimulus? No. I'm suggesting that we are bound to realize the necessity of sacrificing some things to fill our rice bowls, especially our youthful habits. University life may be a course, but it is not the cause.

        Still, thank goodness for the subjectivity of the term "Youth" itself! I really see no need to verbally define "Youth". We are youth. The tragedy only happens when you lose your youth and continue to live in oblivion, with no desire to reminisce the (how I loathe this phrase) "good old days".

        Youth itself is not a living being and cannot die. If I must describe the authenticity of Youth, it is an attitude that is ultimately optimistic, though stained with the cynical phase from indulging in innocence (and sometimes naivety).

        In other words, the youth in you will not be demised unless you consciously want to and do not see the need for it anymore. Training, careers and appearances may affect your youth, but they only deal with the superficial side of it. They can neither take away your mischievous sense of humour nor that sparkling glance at your sidekicks.

        In time to come, perhaps we won't be reminiscing our youth...but celebrating it with its immortality in us. The Youth does not die! Hooked

Images courtesy of: www.cornwall.gov.uk

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