Dont' Forget To Look For It

When you grow up your heart dies.

If you don’t believe me, ask Ally Sheedy:

 

If you don’t believe me, as KennethLonergan:

 http://www.npr.org/2016/11/30/503865472/manchester-by-the-sea-director-probes-the-drama and-humor-of-grief

GROSS: And then, of course, you wrote "This Is Our Youth," which is about people in their late teens and early 20s. But when you're writing the roles of teenagers, do you draw on your memories of your own teenage years or on teenagers who you know now?

LONERGAN: I think more the memories of my own teenage years because the teenagers I know now don't really talk to me.

(LAUGHTER)

LONERGAN: My daughter talks to me. She's 14. And some of her friends talk to me. But I mostly watch them talking to each other. They're not - some of her friends are extremely pleasant and nice to us and talk to us all the time, and some of them just say hello, you know, if you make them say hello. So I'm just very interested in teenagers, and I always have been. I remember those years very vividly.

And I - it's always interesting to listen to them talking to each other on the street or walking past a school or anything like that. I just find it to be a very dramatic time of life, for lack of a better word. And I remember what it felt like to be a teenager. And I also remember observing my friends and schoolmates at the time in a - kind of a funny way because I was one of them, but I was also watching and noticing this sort of extreme behavior combined with this, I don't know, really beautiful extra passion for everything that teenagers seem to have. And I find the combination to be endlessly fascinating.

GROSS: So you said you remember what it felt like to be a teenager. What did it feel like to you? What are some of those - yeah.

LONERGAN: Not great.

GROSS: (Laughter).

LONERGAN: I think - well, (laughter) but that's actually not true. I remember really - I remember this - you know, this intense and very - this intense fascination for things that was really at the ready. At the same time, I didn't feel too good socially. I had some close - I had a small group of close friends that got smaller and smaller as I got older. And I think that part wasn't so great. I didn't have a girlfriend in high school. That was a constant problem. And I didn't know what you were supposed to do, you know, in a situation with the opposite camp. And there was all sorts of difficulties in that regard. But there's something about the fecundity of a mind that age that I really think is - that I remember very well and wish I could carry a bit more of that with me as I get older.

fe·cun·di·ty

feˈkəndədē,fiˈkəndədē/

noun

noun: fecundity

1. the ability to produce an abundance of offspring or new growth; fertility.

So you see, I am not the only one who believes there is a death of sorts beyond adolescence.

Do you not get wistful not for specific things from those years to happen again but rather, for the feeling and the intensity that occurred along with those events? It didn’t matter the specific music that you liked during those years –your tastes have undoubtedly changed- but the death is that you cannot recapture the passion and intensity of your love for x or y’s music from when you were a teenager. No one goes on and on about the music they listen to when they are 30 or 40. Music is of course only one example of this phenomenon. Take love or athletic competition or art or what have you, those years, when your brain is fully cooking you, is when you will be the most passionate in your life.

But…

My Joe Pesci there are moments of bliss, even after our teenage heart dies.

If you don’t believe me, just watch this video:

Just look at the smiles on the faces. These are grown people, sure they are stars and famous and all that but don't be fooled, they have problems just like you and me. I said it, just like you and me. But here they are, and the tape doesn't lie, just beaming like children at a birthday party with a bounce house. Simply because a song is playing and people are dancing and performing. 

Some captures:

 That is Denzel Washington from Training Day. Remember "King Kong ain't got shit on me!" Yeah, that's him, smiling like he can't help it.

Oh and these two:

And my favorite, Mr Bardem:

Could he be any happier? Yes, this is the "You've been putting up with it your whole life."Javier Bardem.

So look, your heart, a part of your heart, dies. And your sight goes and your hearing goes and food doesn't taste as good and all of it is true.

But bliss can be found so easily, just don't forget to look for it.