and I always feel like there's a weird collective amnesia about what those years are actually like
On my less charitable days, I suspect that the folks participating in that amnesia were the ones who in their own adolescence were most instrumental in making it harder for the other kids. I dunno, maybe they started seeing things and said to themselves, "Yeah, but it's not gonna be me on the short end!" and then went around making sure of that in that special high school way. And then when they grew up and realized that it had been not only futile but actively mean, the easiest way to dispense with the bad feelings was pretend it never happened. After a while they convince themselves of it.
When I'm feeling more charitable, I think that there are some stories our culture tells us, that get repeated over and over, and "these are the best years of your life!" is one of them, and it gets said over and over and people start thinking it's true. Maybe it's easier than remembering what it was really like.
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On my less charitable days, I suspect that the folks participating in that amnesia were the ones who in their own adolescence were most instrumental in making it harder for the other kids. I dunno, maybe they started seeing things and said to themselves, "Yeah, but it's not gonna be me on the short end!" and then went around making sure of that in that special high school way. And then when they grew up and realized that it had been not only futile but actively mean, the easiest way to dispense with the bad feelings was pretend it never happened. After a while they convince themselves of it.
When I'm feeling more charitable, I think that there are some stories our culture tells us, that get repeated over and over, and "these are the best years of your life!" is one of them, and it gets said over and over and people start thinking it's true. Maybe it's easier than remembering what it was really like.
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