Teenage Swagger

As you know, being the brilliant individual that I am, I take the back roads to work. This route brings me past the local high school.
Sometimes sitting at the street light the teenage boys strut by my car on their way to classes that will teach them nothing but impatience. They look so pathetic, walking so cool, trying to look so cool, so tough. Then I got to thinking - what else are they gonna do? They got nothing, they know nothing, so they have to act, put on a show, pretend to be substantial.
It occurred to me that it is much more pathetic the way we older folks swagger. We know a lot, have seen and experienced a lot, and we still put on a show. Try to look cool, act tough. It's possible that we are less cool, less tough than a teenager because we have been worn thin, beaten down and disillusioned. We pretend to have the answers when all we have is opinions. Maybe the teenagers are more honest.
We may even be more fragile. "You end up like a dog that's been beat too much until you spend half your life just covering up." (You know the song). You start out like bone and end up like bone china.
But we got the act down, baby.
Maybe teenagers could age more intelligently if the ones who went before were more honest with them.
The girls are a whole different story. They KNOW they own the world. They don't have to do anything but just be. Some strut, some don't. It doesn't matter. They get ogled by the high school boys and the old Aqualungs that drive by. That's all they need to know.
I don't know. The human existence fascinates me. I'm just trying to figure it all out. Looking for a little honesty. From myself first, branching out from there.
I pranced as a teenager; it was exhausting. Actually believing that anyone was even paying attention. But when does the acting stop? Does it ever stop? Or does it just change, adapt, morph into a more desperate kind of theatre?
JL said it passionately - all I want is some truth.
Swagger ain't truth. Swagger is fiction.