I was walking down the street today and I passed a group of high schoolers. My immediate reaction, because I’m a prick, was "fuck these kids..." But as I continued walking I began thinking of being young. Some guy (too lazy to look it up) once said "youth is wasted on the young" [editorial footnote - it was George Bernard Shaw]. That quote popped into my head after seeing those kids...

I thought about it and I’d say that quote is half right. Everyone always says "Man, if I knew then what I know now...". I’ve said it, probably once a day for the past 8 years, and like most grown men, I am full of regrets. Most of them have to do with pussy I should have gotten in high school, I’m pretty sure most guys can relate to that. However, there so much shit you can only do when you’re young that becomes completely unacceptable once you enter adulthood. Shit like getting retarded haircuts, wearing florescent sneakers, doing acid and eating Mcdonalds.

When you’re young, unless you royally fuck up and do some shit like kill someone, you can usually bounce back from whatever. Mistakes are par for the course. The older you get, the less mistakes you can really make. So, with that said, I just wanted to weigh the pro’s and cons of youth vs. being grown up.



SEX-

Young men have it good cause they get to have sex with teenaged girls. While, in theory, I’d love to fuck a 19 year old, I also don’t really want to. An 18 year old guy can fuck a 17 year old girl and feel no shame about it. That’s nice. On the downside, most young girls are too insecure, too inexperienced, or have seen to much weird porn to be fun to have sex with.

On the guy side, sorry ladies, but you’re fucking an 18 year old boy. You’re lucky if he doesn’t bust a nut from touching his dick when he pees, let alone putting it in your vagina. Not to mention, an 18 year old boy's finger banging skills probably resemble Winnie the Pooh violently digging his paw in the honey pot. So, unfortunately, the older and more unattractive we get, the better we get at sex. It’s as if the lower your balls hang, the more skills you’ve attained.

Irony is awesome like that.



DRUGS-

I know I've covered drugs before so bear with me if this is at all repetitive.

When you’re young, you don’t have perspective. When I was a kid, I looked at stoned people as risk takers. People who smoked weed were edgy. As I got older, and people started doing harder drugs, that was even edgier. The first time I saw someone do coke I was in high school and I remember thinking "Holy shit, people my age do that?that’s so crazy!" It was when I smoked weed that it was all demystified.

Years later I see someone who smokes mad weed as kinda bummy and I look at cokeheads as the least edgy people on the planet. But if you’re young, you might as well get it out of the way then. No one should start doing drugs once they have a career going and if you do ecstasy with any regularity after the age of 25, you truly need to check yourself...into the douche hospital.

The kind of drugs that really do separate the ages are hallucinogens. That’s the youth drug of all time cause it’s the kinda shit that actually can mold a person. For better or worse, when you’re young and have no real worries beyond family and friends, you can do some shrooms and just bug out. Once you become an adult and have some shit on your plate, forget about it. It’s hard enough to jerk off and not think of paying taxes let alone taking some acid and not totally going insane.

I've had amazing times on mushrooms. While I don't recommend them, I'm also not about to tell a 19 year old to not do it. fuck'em..they aren't my kids! But, on a darker note, I have a family member who took way too much liquid acid once. He tripped for 30 hours, ended up pissing on his chest cause he was laying down naked with with a hard on and then he tried to bone his own mom. So, you know, be careful.

EATING-

I remember being able to eat a #2 meal at Mcdonalds and then immediately play a two hour game of basketball afterwards. If I did that now, I’d shit in my pants on the way to the court. Young people have iron stomachs. From junk food to drinking, they can handle it. When you get older, all of a sudden all these weird stomach afflictions materialize. Food allergies and shit, that was never a problem before, start to take over. Not to mention, health wise, your diet HAS to change.

Ideally, I’d like eat some form of fried food with mayo and/or cheese on it for every meal but if I did that I doubt I'd ever get off the toilet again.. Once you reach a certain age, you begin to monitor your meals. That tub of ice cream you used to be able to put away after smoking a blunt is a thing of the past. Unless, of course, you don’t mind being a totally fat piece of shit. If that’s not an issue, then I suppose there is no difference between eating when you’re young and when you’re old.

Except for the seizures and heart attacks.



KNOWLEDGE-

Of course, everyone thinks they know everything at all times. From 15 to 50, there’s rarely a moment when anyone thinks they’re not the smartest person in the world. As you get older, you definitely do get smarter and you learn more and more about human nature and why people act they way they do. When I was 15, I knew everything. Then, when I was 20, I looked back on how little I knew when I was 15 and that never ends...But the funny thing is when you, as a 30 year old, come across a 21 year old who is bright eyed and full of opinions and ideas - that person hasn’t been broken down by the reality of life yet and they still have that taking the bull by the horns mentality - I’d like to say it’s cute but it’s more just naive. It is also pretty standard...as I’ve said before, it’s all about perspective. nothing gives you that like the passing of time.

With that said, you can’t dismiss that some people, no matter what age, will always be idiots or assholes. I’d like to say people grow out of that but if you’re a 22 year old total dickface, it’s pretty much ingrained in you to be like that forever. Unless people did some sort of dickface intervention...that’d be nice. Oh and bear in mind, I will most likely read this in a few years and blush at how stupid I was...



So, really, some parts of youth are wasted on the young. Soft skin, firm boobs, great hair and all other things related to your physical appearance. That’s wasted cause, a lot of the time, they don’t know what they have. But the drugs, iron stomach and awkward sex? They can have that. The good thing about youth is everyone goes through it so, unless you’re a child actor, it skips no one. We all get our chance to fuck up and rebuild or not fuck up and have regrets.

So, next time you’re out and see a 22 year old having fun, shit faced while making out with some hot person, with no worries in the world, remember, those are best days of his/her life and you’ve done that already.

And if you haven’t? don’t worry...that’s what hookers are for.