OUR RESPONSIBILITY TOWARD THE MELANCHOLY OF YOUNG MEN

I have seen many young men tragically ruined. They have been ruined by brutal fathers and ignorant mothers; by ignorant fathers and brutal mothers, but most of all, they have been ruined by dangerous friends. They have been ruined by insecurity, as their insecurity has been inherited. It would seem that our lack of education is killing us; our lack of seriousness suffocates the atmosphere of our progress. We are held in the chains of our ignorance. Bondage is the price of stupidity.

Young men need guidance; they need the love and wisdom of other men, without this they are lost.

Troubled youth always seem to find other troubled youth. We have failed to educate our young people; we have given them no initiation because we had none ourselves; in every vital sense we lacked the resources. 

Young men need communication. They need to be able to articulate their insecurities in an atmosphere that will not mock them for those insecurities, but above all, they need to be taken serious. They need to see that they have the capacity to ask good questions; that they have a voice; that violence is the illegitimate pathway to power. But before we can show them a better way we must first find our own way.

The trouble of youth is the trouble of confusion, and this confusion causes fear, and this fear causes violence as a means by which to make up for insecurity. Too often a young man's experience of life has been the act of smashing his fists against a wall. In the end only he is broken.  

When I say I have seen young men ruined. I mean they had the potential to go another way, to be something else, but due to a lack of resources, and every corrupt influence, the only thing they learned was how to survive. This stark reality breaks my heart, as it should break the heart of every noble man. 

The boy who has now become a hardened criminal was once a special and innocent child. And the reason for his loss was a rupture in his development. We made him what he is! 

A denial of our social conditions will get us nowhere. A denial of social conditioning will only rob us of the power we need to fight the lot we have received. So much of life is tragic; so much is wasted.

We owe it to our young people to educate ourselves; for we cannot give what we do not have. In order to be great communicators we must first have something great to communicate.

The key to making a better world is to create better social conditions, as social conditions are the key to the stability and security of the individual. It is imperative that we re-create ourselves in order that we might have the power to intercede.  Without first finding our way out of the abyss we can only pretend to show others. 

Quality people have the capacity to change lives. Mentors are not only for the young; they are something a wise man should intelligently pursue throughout the course of his life. A wise man is not only one who recognizes his needs, limitations, deficiencies, but he also seeks to remedy those deficiencies. A wise man is smart enough to ask for help! He is always seeking to better himself; to gain more mastery over his existence (not so he can exploit people) but so he can more effectively help people.
  
Our collision with young men must be a clash, but not a clash of brutality, a class of intelligence motivated by love. We challenge a young man not to break him, not to control him, but to free him from the confusion of himself; to liberate him from the dark influences that have the potential to destroy his life. We must become serious about education if we would become serious about helping those we love.