Going Fishing By Myself

Illustration by Andy Rementer

 

NYT Sunday Magazine article on joy in teens  (What (Actually) Brings Teens Joy?  We asked dozens of them about where they find tiny doses of happiness) starts with this nice syntax (which I'll share with my students)

Headlines trumpet an alarming trend: American teenagers are in the midst of a crisis. Their rates of anxiety and depression have been rising for years. And many of the factors contributing to this unhappiness — the psychological toll of the Covid-19 pandemic, school-shooting drills, climate change, social media — are ongoing.

Amid all this gloom, I became curious about how teenagers have been sustaining themselves. I remember how extreme the emotions of adolescence can feel; anxiety and hopelessness can seem intense, but so can joy and euphoria. Teenagers are learning who they want to be, experiencing the fullest range of their feelings and seeking out the good. In trying to figure all that out, the youngest among us might actually be the experts at looking beyond challenging circumstances to find happiness.

So I asked dozens of young people from all over the country to explain, in their own words, how exactly they do that. They told me about taking pleasure in everything from fluffy pom-pom pens to white-noise playlists to cotton-candy ice cream. Yes, sometimes these teenagers feel disillusioned and overwhelmed. But they also have routines that reliably bring them delight.

Mostly I got depressed about they silly things the teens talked about... wearing the same clothes as a friend, watching Australian soccer at 2 am, talking to a toy duck.  But I did like the one about going fishing:

Going fishing by myself

I can instantly tell you the thing that makes me happy: It’s fishing. I like to think of it as an escape from reality. Every time I go out fishing, everything else disappears.

A lot of stuff in my life has been structured for me. I wake up, have school, sports practice and homework. Fishing is a way for me to break the loop.

Mostly I fish by myself, whenever I can. If I have a few hours after soccer or track practice, I might go out to my local pond and enjoy myself for a little bit. On the weekends or on school breaks, I often get dropped off at the lake in the morning and picked up at night. Over time, with trial and error, I’ve found a bunch of spots where I like to go: one lake I like for carp, one for catfish and two for bass. Once you get to know a place, you have a deeper relationship with it. You know where to go, what spot you want to sit at and where the fish pile up. I’d say 95 percent of the time I’m doing catch and release. You get to feel the cold wind blowing off the lake and see which birds fly around and where they nest. It’s peaceful and it’s gratifying because you figured it out yourself.

Sometimes I don’t catch anything, but I still enjoy myself. I’ve learned patience from fishing. It helps me study for a test without going crazy, and wait for Christmas or my birthday without turning the house inside out trying to find my presents. — Wren Kennedy, 14, Ridgewood, N.J.