> I'm afraid. I'm afraid that the adolescents of my age will one day take over the world.

I hate to confirm your fears, but they will. That's the way it works. Unless we get an alien invasion or some other species becomes sentient. I'm not saying either of those would necessarily be a bad thing. :-P

>Recently the faith I have had in teenagers has taken a sharp drop as I watch their festering media-rotten minds leak away any maturity, intelligence, emotion and ability they had left. I have always felt a little out of the crowd, and that may contribute to my blistering opinions of them, but I simply cannot comprehend what drives them to drink recklessly, smoke, toss their virginity out the window, and/or not care at all about anything that really matters in life. I just want to know if someone could help me understand these people.

Nope. They're teenagers. Again, that's the way it works. A proportion of teenagers have always been like this, and always will be, and enough of them get over it and go on to be responsible adults to ensure the continuation of life as we know it.

As for feeling like you're the only one in your age group who makes any sense. It's called individual variation. I can assure you that I feel just as baffled by others in my age group now as I did among other teenagers ten or fifteen years ago. Er, that probably isn't all that comforting. Sorry. :-) Actually, there are *plenty* of people around who are just like you, but unfortunately when you're a teenager you have limited opportunity to meet them.

Brunnen-"the world hasn't got any worse, it's just that the media coverage has got so much better"G