Three Words to my 18 Year old Self
What really is of the most importance.
I stumbled across a post on Substack the other day, (can’t find it again for the life of me), which challenged commenters to come up with three words that they would tell their younger selves if they were transported back in time to when they were 18 years old. The comments were about as asinine as you would expect, with the majority either being airy fairy airhead shit such as, “you are awesome” or attempts to try and make as much money as possible. Examples included, “Buy Bitcoin immediately”, “Amazon, Google, Nvidia”, and others of the same sort.
There were also some truly deranged misandrists who took the three word maximum and extended it to full paragraph rants on how all men are evil and must be executed right now. Takes all types I suppose.
I was 18 in 1989, so I would be tempted to tell my younger self to do his best to eliminate all proponents of multiculturalism. The money angle is tempting of course, I won’t deny it. But so is the question of women.
I grew up in an era of promiscuity, whereas my parents did not. Generation X was right on the cusp, and as such our parents were completely ill equipped to guide us in any way. There was a complete absence of any type of effort to guide us as regards to sexual morals. This had extremely negative consequences for both women and men. I myself behaved in ways that should have caused me to feel shame and disappointment. With that in mind, perhaps I would have told my younger self, “no sexual immorality.”
I very much doubt I would have listened.
But all of this pales into insignificance compared to God. Without a doubt if I could have the opportunity to say three words to my 18 year old self then the conversation would go as follows: “Jesus is real.” If it worked then that would go a long way to helping me with the sexual immorality part.
In the thread that I mentioned earlier, among the hundreds of replies I only saw a single one allude to God. The comment was, “Go to church”. The priorities today have not changed for the better since I was an 18 year old ignoramus. I suppose if either of my grandfathers were alive today to see the rotting carcass that is the West, and given the chance to go back in time when they were 18, they would probably say, “Don’t join up.”
But then they would have missed all of the fun. And I suppose that my path to God is just that, a path that I have needed to take. The lessons and the sins while regrettable have ultimately brought me to where I am today. So if given the chance, perhaps I wouldn’t say anything at all. Just ponder my younger self with exasperated pity.
And tell him to buy Bitcoin. Like, durr, obviously.
Your comments on sexual morality being culturally irrelevant during your formative years in the 1980s and 1990s demonstrate that people who consider those decades to be a 'halcyon period' are either naive or are infected with the post-1960s liberal world-view, but simply disapprove of progressive social changes that took place since they became middle-aged.
This is why I disagree with Vox Day's position that Generation-X are more socially conservative than the Boomers. Did Gen-X reject the sexual licentiousness that became normalised during the 1960s? No, many of them happily engaged in fornication, preferring to delay marriage and having children. Did Gen-X reject single-parenthood? Not at all. Does Gen-X consider themselves more Christian compared to Boomers? Certainly not, if one breaks down Christian affiliation by age cohort, as reported in national censuses. Did Gen-X reject the trend to label children with so-called 'mental conditions’, an excuse to relieve them from the challenges of raising their offspring and from applying traditional disciplinary methods if needed, instead preferring to use a trendy diagnosis as advertised by doctors and psychiatrists?' No, they didn't -- cases for so-called 'ADHD', 'Aspergers' and other 'behavioural problems' have rose substantially since the beginning of the 21st century, a period of time when Gen-X rapidly became the largest demographic raising children.
Are/were the children of Gen-X allowed to play outdoors without parental supervision for hours at a time, a normal feature for life for Gen-X children of the 1970s/1980s? No, modern children are the least likely to play outside without adult supervision, according to surveys conducted on the question. Did Gen-X reject homosexual marriage? Not at all; they were more in favour of permitting same-sex weddings than the Boomers who were more resistant (at least in the U.S. anyway).
Adam, thankfully you recognise that the world of the 1980s/1990s wasn't socially healthy, a view that that should be seriously considered by Gen-X/Millennials who claim to be 'nationalists' and 'conservative', but reminisce fondly on their youth. In decades time Gen-Z will probably look back on the 2010s/2020s as halcyon age, whilst their aged Gen-X parents will rightly scoff at their children for showing fondness for a period of time that wasn’t that spectacular, an opinion quite likely shared by older generations would shown in their twilight years in regards to the 1980s/1990s.
Study Catholicism.
Although I'm not sure my 18 year old self would listen to such advice.