I Could Last forever

I Could Last Forever

4-5 Of Youth and Age

6-7 Young Hero

8-9 Sense of Adventure

10-11 Adolescent Mentor

12-13 Birth of the Teenager

14-19 Teenage Pilgrimage

20-21 Rebel Without a Cause

Contents

I Could Last ForeverAn exploration into the idea of youth.

By Alexandra Brittain

4I Could Last Forever

Young men, in the conduct and manage of actions, embrace

more than they can hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly

to the end, without consideration of the means and degrees;

pursue some few principles, which they have chanced upon

absurdly; care not to innovate, which draws unknown

inconveniences; use extreme remedies at first; and, that which

doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or retract them; like

an unready horse, that will neither stop nor turn.

Sir Francis Bacon

Of Youth

Certainly it is good to compound employments of both; for

that will be good for the present, because the virtues of either

age, may correct the defects of both; and good for succes-

sion, that young men may be learners, while men in age are

actors; and, lastly, because authority followeth old men, and

favor and popularity, youth. But for the moral part, perhaps

youth will have the pre-eminence, as age hath for the politic.


Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too

little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the

full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.

And Age

Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream

dreams, inferreth that young men, are admitted nearer to God

than old, because vision, is a clearer revelation, than a dream.

And certainly, the more a man drinketh of the world, the more

it intoxicateth; and age doth profit rather in the powers of

understanding, than in the virtues of the will and affections.

Teen dances of the 1950s.


Young

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England’s, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

V. The Soldier

Rupert Brooke 1914


The last surviving combat veteran of World War I,

Claude Choules, died in his sleep, he was 110.

Hero

I Could Last Forever

This could have occurred nowhere but in England, where men and sea

interpenetrate, so to speak--the sea entering into the life of most men,

and the men knowing something or everything about the sea, in the way

of amusement, of travel, or of bread-winning.

We were sitting round a mahogany table that reflected the bottle, the

claret-glasses, and our faces as we leaned on our elbows. There was a

director of companies, an accountant, a lawyer, Marlow, and myself.

We all began life in the merchant service. Between the five of us there was

the strong bond of the sea, and also the fellowship of the craft, which no

amount of enthusiasm for yachting, cruising, and so one can give, since

one is only the amusement of life and the other is life itself.

8

Sense of

Peter Pan - the boy who never grew up.

I Could Last Forever 9

Adventure

Exerpt from ‘Youth’ by Joseph Conrad

“Yes, I have seen a little of the Eastern seas; but what I remember best is

my first voyage there. You fellows know there are those voyages that seem

ordered for the illustration of life, that might stand for a symbol .You

fight, work, sweat, nearly kill yourself, sometimes do kill yourself, trying to

accomplish something--and you can’t.

“It was altogether a memorable affair. It was my first voyage to the

East, and my and it was also my skipper’s first command. You’ll admit it

was time. He was sixty if a day; a little man, with a broad back, with bowed

shoulders and one leg more bandy than the other, he had that queer

twisted-about appearance you see so often in men who work in the fields.

He had a nut-cracker face--chin which was framed in iron-grey fluffy hair,

that looked like a chin strap of cotton-wool sprinkled with coal-dust. And

he had blue eyes in that old face of his, which were amazingly like a boy’s,

with that candid expression some quite common men preserve to the end

of their days by a rare gift of simplicity of heart and rectitude of soul.

What induced him to accept me was a wonder. I had come out of a crack

Australian clipper, where I had been third officer, and he seemed to have

a prejudice against crack clippers as aristocratic and high-toned. He said to

me, ‘You know, in this ship you will have to work.’ I said I had to work in

every ship I had ever been in. ‘Ah, but this is different, and you gentlemen

out of them big ships;... but there! I dare say you will do. Join to-morrow.’


Adolescent

Fagin - the unreliable mentor.

In Greek mythology, Mentor was a loyal friend and adviser to Odysseus,

king of Ithaca. Mentor helped raise Odysseus’ son, Telemachus, while

Odysseus was away fighting the Trojan War. Mentor became Telemachus’

teacher, coach, counselor and protector, building a relationship based on

affection and trust.


Mentor

‘The person who goes through

adolescence in a state of

equilibrium is abnormal.’Stanley Hall - ‘Adolescence’ 1904

Mentoring today is synonymous with the process by which we guard and

guide others. Mentors seemingly “adopt” those placed in their care.

The Odyssey relates that, when his father failed to return home at the end

of the Trojan war, Telemachus set out to search for him, accompanied by

the Goddess Athena who was disguised as his old guardian, Mentor.

Telemachus was shipwrecked on the island of the nymph Calypso, where

Ulysses too had been wrecked and kept by Calypso who had wanted to

marry him. Similarly, Calypso fell in love with Telemachus and detained

him by persuading him to relate his previous adventures. Venus sent Cupid

to aid her in her designs, but Telemachus fell in love with Eucharis, one of

Calypso’s nymphs, provoking the godess’s wrath. Cupid incited the other

nymphs to burn a new boat that Mentor had built to aid Telemachus’s es-

cape. Telemachus was delighted by this delay but was thrown into the sea

by Mentor and they were picked up by a passing vessel.


Birth of

Teenage marketing in the 1960s.


The Teenager


The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Teenage


The 60’s saw the introduction of the Hippie Trails.

Pilgrimage


Today, hundreds of thousands of people are taking gap years all over the

world. Some last more than a year, some less, but they’re all about taking a

break that is much more than a holiday. Many travel to places such as Aus-

tralia, New Zealand and Thailand for months on end, travelling in relative

comfort and ease, but its taken a long time to get where we are today, and

gap years have come a long way.

Many things have changed since gap years first became a recognisable

phenomenon in the 1960s. These were the years when the young genera-

tion shook off the post-war austerity and grew the confidence to ask if

their lives had to be the same as their parents’. Gap years were part of this

cultural and social revolution, and if there’s one thing that has remained

the same throughout the ages it’s the essence of travelling.

A gap year is about new challenges and new experiences, seeing new coun-

tries and meeting new people. It’s about living life to the full and realising

there’s a world of opportunity out there just waiting to be explored. But

the question is, when did it all start?

The 60’s was a time of freedom of speech and independence, a time of

cultural and social revolution, and the decade that gap years were first

made popular. Arguably gap years started as cultural exchanges, discussed

among governments as a useful tool to create global awareness and under-

standing in an attempt to prevent further world wars from occurring. Little

did they know they were creating the gap year as well.

History of


A richer spiritual life was what many of these travellers were looking

for and they initially set their sights on India, a country that was open to

different cultures and change. People in their droves trod the hippie trail

from Delhi down to Goa, setting a precedence of backpacking for years to

come, on a route that is still followed today.

In 1967, Nicholas Maclean-Bristol set up the company Project Trust and

sent three volunteers to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. According to Project

Trust “the young volunteers would of course assist in the building of a

developing nation but, at such an impressionable age, they would also be

learning about Ethiopia, developing their own skills and learning to live

independently at the same time.

The Gap Year


Forty years on and those aims remain unchanged.” The desire to do

something to help others abroad had been there before but now there was

a straightforward way to achieve it and a volunteering ethos was born. As

the 60s turned into the 70s, gap years continued to grow in popularity.

Flights were still expensive so gappers turned to buses instead. The mode

of transport didn’t matter; it was all about the journey, not the destination.

In 1977, GAP Activity Projects (now Lattitude Global Volunteering), a

UK organization, set-up volunteer placements for students who wanted to

travel between school and university. This was a continuation of what had

been started by Project Trust ten years before. The classic between-school-

and-university gap years began to grow.

Orlando Charman’s infamous ‘Gap Yah’ video.


Gap years continued to grow throughout the 80s and early 90s. Back-

packing was the popular thing to do. It was hip. It was cool. Independent

travel and backpacking was getting easier, less risky, and most importantly,

cheaper. Demand grew, prices for air travel fell and all of a sudden taking

a gap year had become a rite of passage for pre-university students in the

UK.

Gapyear.com was one of the first ever online social networks, specifically

aimed at backpackers to share their stories and experiences. Other sites

have come and gone but gapyear.com continues to be the number one

place to talk all things gap year.

In July 2005, the economic and business forecasters Mintel valued the gap

year travel industry globally at £5bn a year and identified it as one of the

fastest growing sectors of the travel industry. Not only were gap years here

but they were here to stay. With an online platform tapping into tech-

nology that was increasingly accessible, gap years grew from strength to

strength, as did the companies around it.

Today, going on a gap year is as popular and as common as going on a

two-week holiday. It doesn’t matter what type of gap year you’re taking, all

that matters is you’re taking one. The point is gap years are no longer just

for the young and rich. Backpacking and travelling is accessible to all ages,

from all backgrounds, and there’s never been a better time to travel.

Written by Marcus Sherifi


Rebel

Plot

Teenage loner Jim Stark arrives in town, and proves himself in knife fights

and on the roads. But what he really wants is love from his parents.

Review

It’s safe to assume that the world of the film teenager would have been

a very different one had ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ never been made. As

James Dean created a whole new breed of movie hero - the cool, troubled

adolescent, he turned screen-teen culture into a new phenomenon.

The film still holds a powerful emotional truth in its painfully poign-

ant study of teens in turmoil. It’s a film tinged with sadness, given that

all three of its stars died young - and against some of today’s more hard


Without a Cause

Reviewed by Angie Errigo

hitting pictures, its brushes with the law, rival gang fights and tragic games

of car-dodging seem relatively tame.

That said, the central themes of teen trauma - from friendship and first

romance to the need to fit in remain relevant. Forget your ‘She’s All That’s

and ‘Down To You’s, this is the definitive teen flick. And its digital remas-

tering means it looks even better than ever.

Verdict

A fine script, dynamic direction, doomed romantic idealism and telling

performances make this the most timeless of Ray’s gripping social dramas.

Our answer is the world’s hope; it is to rely on youth.

This world demands the qualities of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a tem-per of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of

the appetite for adventure over the love of ease.

President Robert F Kennedy

I Could Last forever

Documents

foreveryoung men

ageyour young men

authority followeth

idea of youth

age hath

amusement of life

young hero8

age doth profit