this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.
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I came to contact with the darker side during my teens (nothing too extreme), and the moment when I woke up from it and realized what I was doing was one of scariest moments of my life. In a weird way, it also gave me a bit of confidence as "awakening" was something that I felt with such a clarity. I really felt the wrongness, the empathy and the disgust, and I really felt the immeasurable (both tiny and large) gap between my "normal" self and my "darker" self.
On the other hand, playing violent games like Doom, Duke Nukem, Mortal Kombat was just fun, and being attracted and fascinated with the violent parts was somewhat weird but not so serious as in real life.
In the end, teens are age of self-discovery, and correlation is not causation.
Teenagers are kids and kids need to be watched over. Not just directly, but by equipping them with the right tools, a bit of wisdom and the knowledge of being loved. They know too little of the world to be left alone on the journey. What are the odds that they will deal with the necessary horrors of life, let alone the unnecessary ones, in a healthy way?
The fact that one of my parents made it impossible for me to respect him, and thus impossible to be really watched over by him (except for some twisted form of "reverse psychology" which I had not even realized) was not a cause, but a poor setting in which I, as any human ever, just had to meet my darker side and learn to manage it. (Not that he had any better equipment than me, probably even worse!)