"Youth is wasted on the young" a continuation of Alok's roadtrip

Jay

Jay

the fool on the hill
Joined
Dec 11, 2005
Messages
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Location
Aurora, IL
I didn't want to muddle up one thread with my thoughts, so here is the continuation to keep his story on topic.

jayhawk said:
I remember all the road trips I took when I was your age. A lot of adventures, too numerous for one thread. Like this one time me and two friends were bored and decided to drive to Saint Louis from Madison, Wisconsin...

<Jay continues rambling>

...and after we got kicked out of the golf course for streaking, we decided to head home.



Road trips lessen as the you get older, become family vacations, become business trips. Treasure them, remember of them fondly my friend, because one day you will not be able to do that because of adult responsibilities.
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No Boss said:
Damn Jay, that was the saddest thing I read all day.

http://img403.imageshack.**/img403/9127/debbiemf7.gif
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Yes, because I will never get those years back, I spend a lot of time day dreaming of when I was seventeen with no burdens on my shoulders and a sense of immortality.

Now I am married with a mortgage, content to stay at home and reminisce about the old times; I sometimes get very depressed and start thinking about wanting to be ten years old again. Remember when you were ten? Old enough to have some responsibility, but young enough to still be innocent about the scary and overwhelming voyage that is life.

"Youth is wasted on the young" is the quote that sums it up best. They truly do not know how good they have, and to enjoy the vibrancy of life to it's fullest everyday.

So, what I am saying is, don't let your best years slip by because of work, or a job, or a marriage you feel obligated to fulfill. Your fate is not pre-determined.

I mentioned in another thread my brother rode around the circumference of America on a bicycle, just to say that he could do it. Fly out to Europe and stay in hostels for a few years. Travel to Alaska and live in cabin you yourself built. Go work for the Peace Corps for a while. Join the armed forces if you have the warrior in you. Go live in Nassau and sell diamonds. Visit WWI battlefields while reading "All Quiet On The Western Front". Ride your motorcycle around the world. Twice. Take a train ride to Siberia in the wintertime.

Whatever the case, find out who you are.

Fall in love. Find someone that you are absolutely gaga for. A love so wild and irrational, it makes you want to hug random people just because of the intense, unbridled emotions you get from love. Make sure every day you have with that person counts, like it your last day on Earth and both of you know it.

NEVER EVER take love for granted, it can easily slip as fast as it came. The next time you and the person you are love with are making love, gaze into each others eye's throughout; get lost in all that wild lust and carnage, look deeper into the soul of the person you love , and know that while that youth is beautiful and fleeting,

Love is forever.
 
Damn you Jay.
It's been some time I haven't been misty-eyed because of something I read.
 
I come to the internet to make my self happy. If I wanted to feel like crap, I'd of gone and read CNN. :-/
 
Wow Jay, that is quite profound. You're way to intelligent to be on the internet :)
 
this is me being verbose

this is me being verbose

I wish I could find somebody that would. :cry:

Seriously though, it's all very inspiring but it doesn't relate to me at all...I've just had such bad luck with women recently and even for as long as I can remember that it's really starting to get to me. It's not even that, which sounds vain and shallow to me, but the general feelings of day-to-day living that inspire such moving posts like Jay's.

Why do you think I bought a motorcycle for the first place? Life is too depressing, there's no escape from the mundane, every day is exactly the same, etc. The cages that surround us are gilded alright, but it's fool's gold. Edward Norton had a point in Fight Club: how much of daily life can you take before you feel compelled to change things, to destroy everything around you (whether literally, like in the movie/book, or mentally, like traditions that you fall into), to start all over again?

It's why I love traveling. To ESCAPE. Who knows what you're escaping from? Your insecurities, your niggling little foibles that leech onto you, the "daily grind". Staring at that computer monitor, blank-faced and wide-eyed, what are we reduced to? Hence the importance of companionship and roadtrips, or at least the concept of escaping whether it be via car or airplane or 1976 Honda CB550F.

Sorry for being a Debbie Downer. I really need to drive to the other end of the country right around now.
 
Whappeh said:
I come to the internet to make my self happy. If I wanted to feel like crap, I'd of gone and read CNN. :-/
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made me laugh.
 
BlaRo said:
Sorry for being a Debbie Downer. I really need to drive to the other end of the country right around now.
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But Blake, you are on adventure; putting together that motorcycle is not for everyone; you should be very, VERY proud of yourself for doing this. You started with nothing, and learned so much! And why did you do it? Because you were determined to to do it. The only limit to a person is themselves, in their own mind. You, and you alone decided that you were able to fix a motorcycle, because you said you could.

I want you to do, when that motorcycle is put together and running, is get on it, fire it up and chase your shadow across America. Ride the Natchez Trail in Mississippi, run through your entire life while cruising on the tollway in Ohio, sleep under the stars in Arizona, dive into the Pacific Ocean in Oregon.

Driving on the Interstate means you have time to think. Run through your entire life while cruising on the tollway in Ohio.
 
Jay, you should write a book. Seriously dude. I'd buy it :thumbup:
 
I feel very fortunate. I've traveled to so many places already, and I'm only 18. I've driven the Amalfi Coast and through Tuscany!! I'm taking another road trip with my brother to Pikes Peak in July, and I'm gonna start investigating other places to see on the way and around that area. Women....eh...not so much luck there, haven't found anybody remotely worth a shit, but hopefully I will. I have plenty of responsibility as it is now, but I never let it bother me. I'm just trying to have fun.
 
jayhawk said:
But Blake, you are on adventure; putting together that motorcycle is not for everyone; you should be very, VERY proud of yourself for doing this. You started with nothing, and learned so much! And why did you do it? Because you were determined to to do it. The only limit to a person is themselves, in their own mind. You, and you alone decided that you were able to fix a motorcycle, because you said you could.
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Already I'm planning to make a run to my childhood hometown of Carbondale, Illinois, which I called home for 7 years: visit my old houses on Surrey Ln. and Hewitt St. (where I swear to God I saw a ghost there), eat at all 5 McDonald's (including the one in the Wal-Mart Supercenter, something I haven't seen in years), stop by Turtle Park where legend has it a kid was trapped in a slide and died there, go rock climbing at Giant St. Park, visit the Bald Knob Cross at Also Pass and wander around the creepy amphitheater, feed the ducks at Campus Lake, buy fresh seafood at Grand Tower, and do everything I haven't been able to in years. Hey, I'll swing by and buy you a beer.

Damn you! Now you've really gotten me sad about being miles away from my bike without the money to keep working on it. I wish I could share this with someone however, and that person doesn't exist AFAIK.
 
You guys made me miss my bike a little bit more (as if the glorious sunny summer days already didn't made me miss her...:()


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jayhawk said:
Visit WWI battlefields while reading "All Quiet On The Western Front".
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I almost did that with Prue while we were over in France only 2 weeks ago... However, we decided against it in the end and stayed in Paris for another day.

I was not sad as I knew that if I had taken her along, she wouldn't have enjoyed/appreciated it as much as I would. I take so much interest in Military history, WWI and II especially, that I know that no-one I know, no one, would ever appreciate seeing the former battlefields or the D-Day beaches as much as I ever will. It would diminish the experience for me. I would want to be alone, so I could think about everything.

The next time I go to Europe, and there will be a next time, I'm going to be by myself and make my way around the former battlefields, thinking thoughts of my own, not having to worry about if the other person I'm with is bored and so on.

Wow, Jay, you've got me on this rambling train of thought, you're awesome man.

I want to do a road trip to Adelaide, mainly to see my Poppa (Mum's Dad) but also because it's a road trip, take some friends, make a detour through the Barossa wineries, make a real holiday of it, have some fun. I'm 23 on March 20th, in my mind it sounds old but I know I'm still young and I still want to have fun. I won't have my first Uni degree until I'm almost 26... Who cares? I'll have life experience, I've already been to Europe twice, Thailand, trekked in Nepal for 2 months when I was 16 but there's still so much more I want to do before I need to settle down.

I don't even know where I'm going with this, bloody hell, reading Jay and Blake's post have got me rambling away like some idiot. Sorry everyone.

P.S. I love Prue like crazy. I thin I have the passion for her Jay talked about at the start.
 
(Claps)

That was really inspiring, I think that you've reminded us to all cherish every single second of life even more.
 
Jay, always remember that there are two sides to every coin. Youth may be wasted on the young, but retirement is wasted on the elderly (unless you are lucky enough to retire young).

I understand the sentiment, but the thing about youth is that it's not just about age, but state of mind. The young are free from our adult concerns, mortgages, insurance and if we should put more money into our IRA or buy a new water heater. While it is true that the young don't know what they have when they have it, that is the joy of being a child. To live in the here and now, unfortunately, it is only with age and experience that we come to understand how precious that gift really is. It's a cruel twist, it is only by loosing our innocence that we understand what it truly meant and as long as we maintain that innocence we are oblivious to how happy we are compared to the adults around us.
 
I think you would cry if you knew just how much I haven't done in life. :lol:

But, I'll make it up to you in the future. If I get into med school (the size of that "if" is astounding) and become a doctor, I'll aim to retire early so I can travel when I'm older.
Of course, if all the med schools I apply to just laugh at my grades, I'll start my career of bagging groceries at the age of 22. That will become a wasted life instead of just a wasted youth!
 
2 things I want from life.

Car for trackday - (and be able to go regularly)

Fall in love (with someone that loves me back)

neither will happen anytime soon.

I wish I was dumb enough to have normal friends and do everyday things people my age do. That way, Id be having fun like they are now.

till now my life has been wasted. Sure I could probably work a little more and afford 1 or 2 roadtrips or something every few months, but it wont be worth it. The thought of having to do the exact same thing everyday drives me nuts. I rather be broke and have time to spend with my friend around town.
 
I tend to enjoy the moments - all lazy people do.
But sometimes i hate myself so much becouse i get a chance to do something, but then i start thinking and see some potential problems or complications and just find a way out of the whole thing and just stay at home or find something less interesting and less complicated. Laziness is a bitch.
I am lucky enough not to have mony problems, and work in a family buisness so off-days are not a problem, but still i don't use them as often and in a way i want and could. I really don't like my self right now.
Damn guys you started me on a train of thought i don't really like.
 
BlaRo said:
I wish I could share this with someone however, and that person doesn't exist AFAIK.
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That person exists, you just haven't met her yet. I felt like you for 19 forsaken years until i met my current wife 9 years ago. The trick is to stop looking for her, only then you'll notice her, and you will know it's her from the very first moment. If someone like me can find the love of his life, anyone can, trust me.

By the way Jay, great post, great story. I find it sad that all the kids in school cannot see how great their life is with all that free time and very few responsibilities. Too bad noone notices that until they start their working life with very little free time and loads of responsibilities.
 
You know one thing I wish? I wish I could just stay at a certain age for as long as I wanted to until I felt ready to move on. I have been wishing that since I was like, what? 13. The thing is, I always had always listened to adults saying that they wish they could be young again, saying to me "you don't know how lucky you are" and I was determined not to make the mistake of wishing my life away/not appreciating my youth. So I was prepared for what's coming, I knew once I got to about 15 that the years would start flashing by.

At the moment I feel the perfect age for me to stay at would be 17. I don't smoke or drink alcohol, yet I can drive which is all I want :D However if a situation arised like the government changing the driving age to 18(which seems the way it's going at the moment), then I would benefit from having the choice to move on.

But being young is always a virtue, enjoy it while you have it because you can never get it back. I would jump at the chance to be 17 again.
 
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