I am no longer just a kid.
Music, empathy and remembering who we are
Hello friends. Two years ago, I posted on Geeky Stoics about my favorite band from childhood (and still today), Linkin Park, and the strange experience of stewing in lyrics whose context is now completely altered by time. “Numb” was stirring my emotions after a bad day at the office, and I found myself descending into the deep well of pity and confusion that was a daily occurrence at age 14. The song is about alienation from your authentic self and the common experience of feeling like your parents want you to be carbon copies of themselves. Then I remembered, I am the parent now of a budding teenager (now 14). To make the experience of aging with an angst factory like Linkin Park even more jarring, my teen and her best friend quite enjoy the band and even went with me to see them perform a few weeks ago. They sang every word. The alienation, the resentment of parents, the confused anger…we sang those songs together. On the one hand, it’s uncomfortable; on the other, it’s a huge jolt of empathy that busy parents can sometimes lose in the hustle of feeding and clothing everybody. You remember for a few minutes how your child is feeling, and how sometimes you make them feel badly, even when you don’t mean to. For the kid, the empathy surely must extend in the opposite direction. Do they see you singing those songs with them and think for a moment….he might know what I’m going through…..
Today, I’m happy to publish
, who writes about a similar sonic experience with Blink-182 and the mixed feelings you get when you realize how much you’ve changed since those songs first entered your heart.I am no longer just a kid.
Lately, I've been listening to Blink-182 Radio on Spotify, and a song came on that I hadn't heard in a while: I'm Just a Kid by Simple Plan. This was a song I liked when I was a teenager. It came out in 2002, when I was in high school. I used to sing along, commiserating with every word.
As I listened to it again, nearing forty, I started thinking about a couple of things. One—how pathetic it sounds now—how much self-pity is packed into the song. Two—how much I miss the person who liked that song. That person knew how to have fun because that person wanted to have fun.
I'm just a kid and life is a nightmare
I'm just a kid, I know that it's not fair
Nobody cares, 'cause I'm alone and the world is
Having more fun than me tonight
And maybe when the night is dead, I'll crawl into my bed
I'm staring at these four walls again
I'll try to think about the last time I had a good time
Everyone's got somewhere to go
And they're gonna leave me here on my own
And here it goes
I'm just a kid and life is a nightmare
I'm just a kid, I know that it's not fair
Nobody cares, I'm alone and the world is
Having more fun than me
I definitely felt like that as a kid. I thought I was alone, but I was just stubborn. I didn’t want to learn what others wanted to teach me, and I chose to be alone. I can almost remember sitting in my room, mad at everything and everyone, thinking things would be different as an adult. Then I’ll have fun.
But that’s not what happened.
There’s so much you don’t see as a kid. Everyone has somewhere to go—not because they’re cooler or more popular, but because they have responsibilities. The world is full of them. Having fun isn’t a right. It’s a privilege.
And when I look back at that kid, a part of me doesn’t like him. Sure, he had some fun. He was always ready for a party. But a part of me hates him for wasting time, sulking in self-pity instead of preparing for the work that would come when it was his turn to be an adult.
Another part of me misses him.
Because I’ve had to change so much, and now I do so much, I always have somewhere to go. Sometimes I forget that it’s okay to have fun. I think I realized this before I even heard the song again. Lately, I’ve been trying to remind the people closest to me of who I was when they first met me.
I was fun—before I was “Dad.”
“Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.”
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.59
Looking within is never easy. And when you look back and see a fool, it can be hard to forgive yourself. While I may have been a fool, I was just trying to be the best version of myself, same as today. But now I know what I didn’t back then, that a foolish boy can turn into a wise man when they have the will to dig.
And now, my challenge is to balance the person I was with the person I need to be now. Now my job is to teach my younger selves (my kids) that fulfilling responsibility is fun when you do it with people you love. You don’t have to be alone. You choose to be. If I do my job well, the next generation of kids won’t sulk in their rooms and complain that the world’s not fair. If I do my job well, my kids can succeed where I failed.
Thank you for sharing that Mr. Mayhugh, and thank you for reading Geeky Stoics. Over on our YouTube channel we have a new video up about C.S. Lewis an the origins of morality, as explained in the wake of a disastrous public debate for Jordan Peterson.
Coincidentally, Lewis also suffered a bruising debate in public on the Oxford campus. A female student dressed him down in front of everyone, causing Lewios to doubt his qualifications to engage in apologetics and defend reasoned faith. He recovered with time. Hopefully, Peterson will, too. That will take some self-reflection.
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