Analysis: TROBISCH KAPALU
THE hardest and nearly impossible thing a human being can do is to run away from growth.
Growth simply means an improved change and basically a shift from one point to another. In physical terms it means an increase in size and height. For us human beings this entails maturation: the ongoing change that we acquire over time for as long as we live
In our journey to growth, as we respond to perpetual change that nature commands, we inevitably pass through a tough and chaotic but also sweet stage that bridges childhood and adulthood. This is called adolescence, a stage in life which acts as a game rope that childhood and adulthood use to pull each other and eventually, with a pull of growth, the latter usually emerges victorious.
How tough, chaotic and sweet is this stage?
Tough: Adolescence is tough because a person at this stage gets into a serious battle with themselves as they strive hard to cross over to adulthood. They become more concerned about dependence and there is nothing as tough as leaving dependence for independence. Africa will bear me witness about this growth resistance!
Chaotic: In the quest for identity, a human being at this particular stage is always in chaos regarding understanding things differently. He or she desperately wants to know and understand who they really are. They would prefer taking pragmatic actions as acid tests to simply being told fire is dangerous to play with. What is even more chaotic and let alone confusing to understand is the fact that babies are not bought from but are born in hospitals!
Sweet: Adolescence is also a stage when a person experiences sweet body changes accompanied by strange feelings. Here adolescents begin to develop features on their bodies that categorically make them look lovely and unique. They become incomparable that often they boast about how special and knowledgeable they are. The sweetness leads to persuading others that it would be good to remain here for the rest of their life without further growth interfering with them.
However, adolescence is short-lived. It is the only stage in life that has a very short lifespan whether one is dwarf or gigantic in stature.
However, social media argue for the very opposite. They seem to suggest that adolescence is the longest and perhaps a permanent stage in one`s life.
Social media is notorious for propagating mainly fake and negative news which a wavering or unstable adolescent quickly mistakes for a virtue which they would like and share with many people across the board. They would rather borrow crazy clothing and manipulate their physical appearances (facial included), take pictures to Photoshop and attempt to create falsehood.
If not handled properly, social media can turn users into adolescents even when they are pushing towards 70. Social media tends to thrive on fantasies by promoting beauty that does not exist. It hurts to state that they also promote prostitution, waywardness and other negative lifestyles.
This component of modern technology has come to stay, meaning that it is here to bury the old while allowing many people to approach growth with an adolescent ego.
To reiterate the good news: a human being will never escape from growing up. So, we are encouraged to challenge social media that adolescence is not forever, that it is a stage in life with a very short lifespan and making it perpetual leads to moral decay. The reason I chose to write this and the reason why you have decided to read it is because we want to change and not to be static. This is growth which should never be tampered with by the lure of burgeoning and deceptive social media.
The author is also author of “Walls Beyond The Horizon and Sr Mary”.