Thoughts I think

* MLP:FiM needs to do an episode on a pony who didn't have a lot of friends in the past, not because she REJECTED other ponies' overtures at friendship (which is arguably the reason why Twilight got sent to Ponyville in the first place) but because s/he didn't fit in with the group of ponies s/he was a part of. Like, maybe a Pegasus in Canterlot, where it's almost all unicorns. Or a unicorn whose magic is different from the others around him or her. And the idea of being strong and managing on your own and then trying to find other friends even though those around you reject you.

My inner child could totally write that episode. And yeah, I think it does need to be an episode because I am sure there are still "unpopular" kids out there.

* I also find myself thinking of the 20th century invention of adolescence or teenagerhood, and I wonder if on balance it's more a bad thing than a good thing. The idea that you "separate" from your parents not by going out and working or marrying or joining a religious order or whatever, but you "separate" by being rebellious and difficult. Or at least that's the stereotype. I was not a rebellious teen and I think the reason I found the ages of about 12 to 18 so baffling because what the culture said I was "supposed" to be doing were generally not things I wanted to do - I loved and respected my parents and didn't want to cause them pain. And I didn't understand my peers.

And I wonder if the "teen years"- where, in the stereotype, a middle-class or upper-middle class kid has a lot of spending money and a lot of free time - is maybe kind of wasted. And yes, I know, not all teens are like that. (I was in prep school swotting for a STEM major in college, some nights I had four hours of homework). But in general, I think that "last gasp of irresponsibility before assuming the mantle of adulthood" has maybe caused some problems: I see too many people unwilling to assume that mantle (the college student who sees his or her time in college as four years of partying, the 20-something who doesn't want to work full-time)

I don't know. I just think about earlier times and how people in their mid-teens would be out working, either on the farm or as an apprentice, or maybe the particularly intellectually gifted ones would be working with a tutor or in seminary already. (And yes, I get that that is mostly men; women would, depending on their economic class, be going through the whole process of debutantage or perhaps already betrothed)

And yeah, I get that the "to work at 15" means my current career goes away totally. But....I don't know. We've become so detached in some cases from "real" things, so much staring at tiny little screens. I don't know.

I also wonder if the unwillingness to act like an adult contributes to the general increase in rudeness,  nastiness, stupid insults, etc. What I call the f-0-u-r ch*nization (there are some words you don't write out, to avoid fans of the place finding you) of the culture, where people feel empowered to do stuff like encourage someone who is writing about being depressed to 'kill themselves already' and other horrible, "othering" sorts of things that honestly, are not loving their neighbor one bit. I don't know if the culture is getting uglier or if the ugliness is just on greater display now.

(I admit, there are days when I think: I need to just detach from the Internet. Delete my Twitter account, spend minimal time on Ravelry, etc. Maybe ONLY use it for e-mail, and that rarely. And I don't even really get harassed online. But seeing it secondhand is dismaying. Human nature can be incredibly ugly, and I find myself asking, "what end does being so cruel serve? It does not make you richer, it does not make you better, all it does is hurt someone else. 'For the lulz' is a HORRIBLE justification for ruining someone's day.")

* I also think the comparative idleness of teen years can breed bad stuff. It's well known how "mean" some teens, especially younger ones, can be. And the whole issue of popularity - I think part of the reason my early teen years were so difficult for me was that I didn't understand it, and I still don't.

Thirteen was the worst year. Part of it was external stuff - a classmate did something to me that would probably be classed today as bordering on sexual abuse. I had a science teacher who was awful, and science was my favorite subject. (The teacher was someone who, many years later, went to prison for an "inappropriate relationship" with a student, as they say. That wasn't the thing that made me uncomfortable, though I did try to avoid being alone in a room with him - I had at least that much of a radar in those days. No, this was someone who told us to do assignments but *left out certain instructions* in such a way that now I wonder if he was intentionally setting it up so that the students who previously had earned As would fail at them - to what end? Teach us a lesson? Get us used to failure? It was spectacularly cruel if it was intentional and it almost turned me off of science). And finally, the person who had been my BFF since first grade got "asked up" to the popular girls' table because she developed into a butterfly while I remained a particularly unattractive caterpillar, and she PASSED ME A NOTE in the hall essentially saying, "I think, in light of my new status, that you and I not be seen together any more."

And it amazes me now, but I ACCEPTED that. I figured that was how life was: some people randomly had luck, others did not, and I was fated to be unlucky, and without a best friend, and if I ever DID make another good friend, there was a chance she'd desert me too. (I do still somewhat have trust issues)

So I don't know. If I had been using a mule to plow fields or had been tending my five younger siblings, I might not have had to deal with that, or I might not have put as much emphasis on it.

* And yeah, despite the fact that it was generally a positive week for me, my emotionally-wounded thirteen-year-old is close to the surface right now. Partly bad allergies, partly being tired because it's mid-semester, partly because someone said something dismissive to me that hurt my feelings and even as my feelings hurt I am telling myself it is stupid to have hurt feelings and I need to just get over it....but I can still picture my thirteen year old self eating her lunch alone in a dim corner of the lunchroom, after someone she tried to make friends with said, "You're a loser and that's why no one likes you. And you wear cheap clothes." (I went to a very fashion conscious junior high)

And you know, in some ways I still am that girl. I do an awful lot of stuff alone, partly because I have a hard time approaching people (too much rejection when I was younger). Part of it is I honestly don't mind doing a lot of things alone. But then I get into this loop of wondering, "Does that make me weird? It probably makes me weird. People think I'm weird and that's why I don't have a lot of in-person friends..." So I don't know.

And I agree, it's stupid. It's stupid to let the things people say get to me. I was thinking about it, imagining it as a dialog in a story (because somehow that's how things work for me) last night:

"You're upset."
"Yes. Some people just don't like me. All my life, I've had people around who told me I was worthless."
"Worthless?"
"Yeah, that I didn't belong, that I should go away. Worthless."
"You believe in God, don't you?"
"mmmmhmmmmm."
"Well, what would God say? God would say you have worth, don't you?"
"yeah...."
"So who are you gonna listen to, God or some dumb kid? Who do you think is right?"

And while I acknowledge that intellectually (and it's correct), still, it is hard for me not to feel like I've taken an arrow to the knee when someone questions my competence or my worth.