The Nostalgia of Childhood? Or a Recurring Nightmare?

I'm currently working round the corner from where I saw Fightstar when I was about 15. I somehow got a day off school to go to sit outside the entrance from midday, just so we could be at the front of the stage. I still have a guitar pick that Charlie Simpson used at that gig.

But when I was that age I couldn't even imagine getting another year older. I didn't know why I existed, what I was here for. Those were darker times, but that feeling still persists for me and for many others in varying degrees. A feeling of futility, wondering what the hell the point is.

How many of us said or did things when we were younger that we later regretted? That we still regret? I sure as hell do. When we're not sure what life has in store for us, life as a young person leaves you feeling vulnerable and desperate to make your mark in anyway possible. To leave an impression on everyone you know, just to have a reason for existing.

Paris Brown, the 17 year old Youth PCC should have been allowed to learn from her mistakes before she was so roughly treated (and in my opinion attacked relentlessly by the press *cough* Daily Mail *cough*) and forced to step down less than a week into the role. As she put it so eloquently, she fell into the "trap of behaving with bravado on social networking sites". How many of us did that when we were younger? How many of us still do it on social media sites? The internet allows us to act harder than we really are, hiding behind the screen. She wrote them between the ages of 14 and 16. Whilst she's now only a year older, that is exactly my point - she is older. And she'll have continued to get older and learn and grow. If an established MP made those comments then yes, fair enough, they should resign. But the fact is the young woman was brand new to this game of police, politics and paparazzi. The fact that she understands the reason she behaved in that way would in fact put her in an even better position to work with young people.

And like some of us, the things we did when we were younger may haunt Paris Brown and follow her throughout her life. Like a recurring nightmare. I still feel grieved when I consider the impact of my destructive actions as a teenager. I didn't know what I was doing then. I was acting up, and acting out.

Why are we so blood thirsty now? Why are we turning into a society of Malvolios and desperate to see people failing? Does it really make us feel better? Should we not concentrate on feeling better about ourselves because we are winning and not because others are losing? (Does this extend to oft-used phrase "I could be worse off"?) Why should our happiness depend on others unhappiness?
Maybe we should all focus our energies inwards, and rather than wasting them on hatred, or jealousy, or contempt of others, use those energies for love of ourselves.

**
I had a thought:

Skin is our largest organ right? And yet we think nothing of picking scabs, popping spots and ripping hairs from their roots.
That's weird, isn't it?