How to piss me off...
...So yeah. Just a little something which most people overlook, but which gets to me.
I'm 15. That in itself doesn't piss me off, but a lot of what's associated with it does - namely, if I walk into a room full of anyone older than me, people pay no attention to me or patronise me. I'd be lying if I said words couldn't describe how I feel when people do that: I no longer feel like a human being, let alone a person. I feel like a number - a small, insignificant little number that barely matters, that is only acknowledged because it's polite to do so.
The worst thing is that a lot of people will agree with me. A lot of people would probably only pay attention to me out of politeness or trying to avoid hurting my feelings; a lot more perhaps wouldn't recognise me as a person. I think more or less everyone's forgotten how they felt when they were the youngest one in the room.
I'll admit that yes, anyone significantly younger than you is pretty much rock-throwing practice. (Younger people - this is not an excuse to be annoying. If anything, it means you should shape up and conduct yourself with dignity and maturity, which by my count would make you better than both your peers and your elders.) But it's nothing less than idiocy to define someone by their age alone and not take the time to find out what they're like.
Age really is just a number. I've met 12-year-olds more dignified and honest than a number of school leavers, and I've met grown men and women who couldn't beat me in a debate. The human brain only finishes maturing at around 25-30, yet 18 is our cutoff for an adult. IQ/100 = mental age/physical age, which complicates matters - especially as a gifted six-year-old may still act like a three-year-old, while the system doesn't work particularly well with high or low IQ scores. In conclusion: age and maturity are only loosely correlated and you shouldn't pay that much attention to one when trying to figure out the other.
I'm 15. That in itself doesn't piss me off, but a lot of what's associated with it does - namely, if I walk into a room full of anyone older than me, people pay no attention to me or patronise me. I'd be lying if I said words couldn't describe how I feel when people do that: I no longer feel like a human being, let alone a person. I feel like a number - a small, insignificant little number that barely matters, that is only acknowledged because it's polite to do so.
The worst thing is that a lot of people will agree with me. A lot of people would probably only pay attention to me out of politeness or trying to avoid hurting my feelings; a lot more perhaps wouldn't recognise me as a person. I think more or less everyone's forgotten how they felt when they were the youngest one in the room.
I'll admit that yes, anyone significantly younger than you is pretty much rock-throwing practice. (Younger people - this is not an excuse to be annoying. If anything, it means you should shape up and conduct yourself with dignity and maturity, which by my count would make you better than both your peers and your elders.) But it's nothing less than idiocy to define someone by their age alone and not take the time to find out what they're like.
Age really is just a number. I've met 12-year-olds more dignified and honest than a number of school leavers, and I've met grown men and women who couldn't beat me in a debate. The human brain only finishes maturing at around 25-30, yet 18 is our cutoff for an adult. IQ/100 = mental age/physical age, which complicates matters - especially as a gifted six-year-old may still act like a three-year-old, while the system doesn't work particularly well with high or low IQ scores. In conclusion: age and maturity are only loosely correlated and you shouldn't pay that much attention to one when trying to figure out the other.
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