Despair and Fulfilment.

Today’s Today program focused on the findings of a Prince’s Trust survey. That three quarters of a million unemployed 15 to 24 year-olds see nothing to live for. Around a quarter have self harmed and or contemplated suicide. That’s pretty devastating, but what does it mean? True being unemployed makes you feel useless compared with those 9to5-ers ‘needed’ to fulfil some paying roll in our social fabric, but a few weeks serving in McDonalds will prove employment’s not a guaranteed route to personal salvation. But even McDonalds provides context, social connection and occupies one’s brain, so it stops rumination. Perhaps rumination is the problem. Then again Mandela had ample time to ruminate in prison and he came out OK It struck me many years ago that it’s not good to stare at the meaning of life because it’s all too easy to see right through it. Better to clean the drains and enjoy it. So these youngsters have time to ruminate on, well nothing. They see themselves living without the necessity to live. So maybe it’s the loss of necessity at the root of things, but then where does necessity come from? Necessity to do what? I mean it’s not necessary I write this but I feel the desire to. So does desire trigger the whole process? Ah but I have the wherewithal to fulfil my desire, computer, internet access etc. If my desire was to win the lottery or become famous, well that’s another matter. So the desire coupled with the means of achieving it is the key, or at least having a desire that matches the possibilities of what one can achieve. OK so these youngsters have desires outside their means of achieving them: In a sense two non-overlapping zones. As a society we have given them a set of desires and a set of capabilities that don’t match. Their ‘mental problems’ don’t come from disability but from trying to resolve the irresolvable situation we have put them in. TV and the media focus their desires on things to buy yet virtually shun thoughts of being capable. Education, desperately trying to prove itself capable, overlooks its role in creating capability in its students. Its subconscious message is, “Please learn this shit so we can look good.” Its message to students is, “Learning is a load of effort for no real world result.” Many parents thankful for the respite care of TV similarly divest themselves of their role in creating capability in their children. All these factors result in the non-overlapping zones of desire and capability. There is nothing these youngsters want to do that they can do. This isn’t just about employment and earning money. Drawing, painting, writing, singing, climbing, fishing, cooking and cleaning and a host of other things can be enjoyable and don’t cost much but aren’t in their desires zone, and equally there are a host of skills not in their capability zone. It’s not important what the zones contain but that they overlap. If they don’t you’re literally useless to yourself, when they overlap completely you can equally literally do anything you want. One is despair, the other fulfilment. Will think further and come back to you. Happy New Year.