Youth, Speed, and the Pursuit of Happiness (Library Research)

I like being honest, so let me be wholly and perfectly honest with you for a moment: I got lost in the library today. You could take that to mean that after finding myself in the midst of so many great pieces of literature and books calling to me from every side, I lost myself in the words of the ages. Which sounds just nerdy and sentimental enough to be me, except that is nowhere near to what actually happened. I legitimately got lost somewhere between the organic chemistry and brain surgery sections of the periodical section in the basement. I think this is embarrassing. Sure, I knew where I was well enough to get back out into the real world and go on with my life, but that wasn't the issue. I could not find Time magazine and had no idea where I was in this strange numbering system.

I was saved by a fellow classmate, also hunting down old periodicals, but the best he could point me towards was Vogue. I didn't want to read Vogue. Or for that matter, Good Housekeeping, Glamour, or any of the periodicals in that area. But it was that, organic chemistry, or continuing to wander through the basement of the library like a starved fish looking for water. So Vogue it was.

Unsurprisingly, I've never read a modern day Vogue, so I had no comparison for this periodical. It looked old, with very simple black and white line drawings, and an incredible number of ads for lingerie. If the ad was over three square inches big, you could bet it was either trying to sell you lingerie or rubber garments intended to reduce fat. I haven't the slightest idea of how the second is supposed to work, but I can assure you the illustrations of the garments looked just as silly as it sounds. Still, that's not what I was subjecting myself to the horrors of a fashion magazine for, and I hunted through the contents of several issues trying to find anything about coming of age and not about how to be a good hostess for a dinner party.

I struck gold about three issues into 1921. There was an editorial titled "Youth, Speed, and the Pursuit of Happiness".

It would appear that even back in the day, teenage drivers were a public menace. They drove fast, hit and killed people, and didn't stop to say they were sorry. The author was exploring not just how to curb this sort of thing, but also why it was happening. In the end, it came down to the simple reason of youth. It was the authors opinion that children of that age can't help themselves and that recklessness is just natural. The older generation may disagree but that's just because they're so much closer to the grave and guard what little life they have remaining so much more preciously. In fact, the author proposed that the "only certain remedy is the dreary one of age and it's accompanying caution."

Did you catch that? The "only certain remedy is the dreary one of age..."

What a surprising stance! To this author, to come of age is to become dreary. To grow up is to grow old, and to grow old is grow dull. To the adults of this age, the youth have all the fun and once you reach a certain age you must put such tomfooleries behind you and get on with a respectable, official, profession, and totally boring life. It's a very romanticized and dreamy look back at youth. Or so it is until the article continues. Suddenly, the author is discussing the savagery that lies beneath a thin veneer in all youth. It's a sudden shift that insists that it is not pure recklessness at play in car accidents but also a lust for power and "wanton cruelty". It's a strange dichotomy, but that's this author's view on youth.

The article continued, discussing what could be done politically to prevent further accidents on the road and I quickly lost interest. The truly fascinating part for me is imagining how this view from the elder generation could change the coming of age process for the teens of that era. Who would want to grow up when you know that to grow up is to have to suddenly abandon all fun for a boring, meaningless, monotone life? I would never want to grow up. And how it would feel to know that your elders are forever watching you for that beastly nature they think you have inside you? I don't know if that would push me to be a perfect angel or just fulfill their expectation of my savage nature.

But has society really changed so much? I can still see hints of each viewpoint in the beliefs of many I've encountered during my life. Perhaps this ninety year old magazine, printed all in black and white and filled with long dead fashion tips, isn't as removed from today as I thought it was.