So what?

One of the greatest joys, indeed privileges, of working with children in schools are those moments when you have a chance to really get under the skin of a challenge, concern or a problem. 

To my mind, there is no greater challenge for children as they go through adolescence than to cling on to some kind of version of themselves. Reader, you will no doubt recall this challenge, we all go through it with varying degrees of difficulty but through it we all must pass. But some kind of version of themselves is not good enough, they need to hold fast to the best version of themselves, but that is no easy job. Without getting all Gallic about this and reflecting from the left bank of the Seine, the tension between essence and existence, it is enough to consider that adolescence is a period of transformation through which every child is journeying among varying influences to the destination of their true adult self without a road map and no compass bearing for the destination itself. In short it would seem that all is in a state of flux.

Where the destination is uncertain and the way vague, the only thing we can control is how we journey. To this I have fashioned three pieces of advice – the better to guide the pilgrim.

So what?

The first caveat is roughly titled ‘So what?’ An old Augustinian monk once told me there are no cardinal sins anymore beyond making a fool of yourself in front of your peers. He was wrong of course but correct at the same time. Am I losing you? If we park the transcendental Thomism or consideration around virtue ethics and look at the lived reality of the children, it might help.

Where they are feeling self-conscious because of the change inherent in adolescence, their capacity to shrug off what the world thinks is acutely difficult. The emerging centre cannot hold against the onslaught of what the prevailing zeitgeist takes as important or proper. The response needs to be a distinct, ‘so what?’ Bursting the immaterial paradigm of the expectations of others, the insistence on doing one’s own thing is the surest path toward self-actualisation. So what if they think this or that is odd, funny, ridiculous etc etc…? Pop in the pejorative of your choosing. So what if I stand out from the crowd or do things differently, or enjoy what others don’t seem to value? So what? It is a bit like overcoming embarrassment; give in to it, accept the folly of what happened and the embarrassment dissolves. The fear of non-acceptance is the troubling consequence, that said it is also more likely that the friendship you seek is less likely to find you if you occupy time and worry in seeking it out. Much more likely that in being your own person, in asking “so what” that the association you want will find you unannounced.

Don’t listen to eejits

The second caveat is ‘don’t listen to eejits’. Now it is important to fasten on the word ‘eejit’. It communicates a feckless lack of reasoned thought that beggars credibility. Now you have it. Not all words translate well and this is one of them, you really need to get a sense of the hopeless idiocy of the concept. Surrounding ourselves with sycophants is equally unhelpful and watching as they blow smoke in our face obscures our path and leads us into self-deluded isolation. Surrounding ourselves with critical friends, who risk the truth because they value who we are becoming, prevents us believing our own hype.

Follow your own star

The last is a combination of the two, ‘Follow your own star’. In the words of Louis MacNeice;

"by a high star our course is set; our end is life:
put out to sea."

Happiness is not on the coat tails of others or riding the wave of popular opinion, that wave crashes soon enough and disappears in the froth of the wash.

One further thought here is what if I don’t know what my star is? Then change where you look for it. Avoid listening to eejits and stare down the ridicule of the marketplace, no one loses a limb and what they think doesn’t have a material impact. Even if it did, what possible difference could it make to being the best version of yourself in whatever circumstance. It will take time and there will be many a lost footing along this road to being our authentic selves but ‘So what?’