Osho On Teenagers
Teenagers go wild about fashion - changing their appearance at every season. What is it they are expressing by doing that?
Nothing is wrong with it. They should be allowed to, because they
are changing, everything in them is changing. Changing fashions is
simply an expression of their inner change. It is perfectly healthy
and right. They should be allowed and helped to change as many times
as they want. Soon they will settle, once their inner changes have
settled. By the time they are twenty-one things will start settling.
For the time being, if you don′t allow them to change the outer
expressions then their inner changes will create tensions and
anguish in them. Let them change. It is natural. This is the time
when so much is happening inside them - before they become mature,
adult - that they need some kind of expression for it. We can help
with better changes but we cannot prevent changes; we can only give
them better alternatives.
For example, we can give them better clothes, every year new
fashions in clothes which are not ugly. Otherwise they will find
their own way and become hippies and do all kinds of stupid things.
They will not take showers, will not wash their teeth; they will do
stupid things because they are, after all, children and new to the
world.
We should give them changes. It is better to give them every six
months better samples - better hair conditioners, better soaps,
better toothpaste. Any change will help. Don′t force them to cut
their hair according to the way you would like, no; give them
alternatives. Take them to the barber and show them all possible
kinds of different, beautiful hairdos. Let them choose; don′t
condemn them.
If you condemn them, they will become punks; they will cut half
their hair, keep the other half, and paint that half in different
colors. What can the poor children do? Give them some better
alternatives - better musicians, better dancers; otherwise they will
become followers of the Beatles.
All these fashions and different things are not going to help them
as much as if the parents were interested and helping them. They
could have given them higher classical music, paintings to do, music
to play, dances to dance; it is their duty. Otherwise, anybody, most
of whom are almost insane people...
You were asking about one pop singer, Madonna. She is a beautiful
woman but just look at her clothes and all the kinds of junk that
she has hanging around. I would like some day to see her. She is
beautiful. She may have talents for great music, great dance, but
she will be gone just like the Beatles and others have come and
gone. Teenagers take everything as a fashion. You cannot depend on
them; they are not serious, they are simply experimenting.
A vast life has become available to them and they are experimenting.
It is the duty of the parents and the teachers and the educational
institutes to give them beautiful alternatives, to give changes
which can help their growth, their maturity.
You know perfectly well that now it is very difficult to find any
hippie. Have you seen any hippie of the age of forty? Do you think
everybody dies nearabout thirty? No. Those poor people, after the
age of thirty, realize that they have wasted their time. They did
not get any education, they dropped out of school because that was
in fashion. They lived in dirtiness, ugliness, drugs, and the moment
they realize it - that they have been stupid - they come back into
life.
But those ten years are lost forever. And back in life they will not
have the same respectable jobs, the same creative facilities,
because they are not skilled, they are not educated. They don′t know
any craft and they have not done anything so in life they will
suffer till their death.
Who is responsible for it? I don′t think they are responsible,
because they were too young, and responsibility cannot be put on
their shoulders. We are responsible. We could have given them better
chances. Perhaps those ten years they could have been meditating
rather than wandering like a hippie from Kabul to Kathmandu, from
Kathmandu to Goa. And after Goa there is nowhere to go... the whole
journey is finished.
They could have been given chances to understand different schools
of meditation - Sufism, Hassidism, Zen, Yoga. They simply needed
something new, something exciting. You could have sent them to the
East to learn Zen painting, Japanese flute or Arabic flute or Indian
flute - there are so many different instruments in the world. Soon
they would have realized that it is time to go back into the world
and work your way. But they would have come with respect, with some
craft, with some creativity.