Youth vs Experience

Youth versus Experience

Since the moment we lay our gaze upon the world for the very first time, we are conditioned to trust adults. Expected to draw upon their infinite wisdom in our times of need and follow them blindly. Their word, for all intents and purposes, is the law. But, have we ever stopped to think just how wise their word is?
Our adults do have a special wisdom of their own, there is no denying that. A wisdom that one can attain only with age.   However, is it right to blatantly disregard the intelligence and ingenuity of youth? The youth, after all have something that adults never will: a boundless energy, an intellectual flexibility and the openness to new experiences. On the other hand, with all this, comes a susceptibility to mistakes triggered by the lack of self-assuredness and security that comes with experience.
While in the ideal world all this won’t be too much of an issue, it has been a cause for much debate in ours. What with the youth ‘acting out’ and accusing the adults of being too ‘backward’ and ‘set in their ways’   and the adults dismissing the youth as mere imbeciles, prone to passionate outbursts, fighting for ideals that won’t work in the real world, as mere kids going through a ‘phase’, there seems to be a huge divide between the generations.
At the root of all this, is the simple fact that this is the way of life. After all, time changes all. As it passes, it ravages all that lies in its path. Lays waste to anything that dares to oppose its passage, to outlast it, to be immortal. Which is why the ideals of the past have to move along to make way for new ideals to be born, to take place in the minds of the next generation. This leads to incomprehension on the adults part, who cannot, for the life of them fathom the thoughts and ideas which drive today’s youth. They, however, forget that they themselves were once the ‘ignorant’ and ‘juvenile’ youth that they begrudge today. The youth that shaped the world into what it is...