I’ve been thinking about the anxieties that may invade the teen mind as it proceeds by fits and starts into adulthood. Of all the nightmare scenarios an adolescent mind can conjure: torments of bullying, of not measuring up physically, mentally, emotionally, of lacking popularity or whatever other conceived ills may occur to the teen person, all pale in comparison to the absolute horror of finding oneself to be insignificant, a nobody. You realize yourself to be forgotten among your peers not even having achieved sufficient identity to be disliked, or cancelled, you are a perpetual stranger, neither included nor excluded in any sense.

Now, clearly, such an imagined horror will never be fully realized since humankind are social animals and will seek out and find like minds, others who share interests, likes and dislikes. Even the most reticent, anti-social, awkward and unlikeable an adolescent may be there will be someone who can relate, someone to share the misery with. So, buck up, life will be tolerable and school soon a thing of the past.