Is there a word for this?

[topum]

I wonder if there is a word in any language to describe that exact feeling one has when one sees someone much younger doing exactly the same stupid shit one did at their age.

You know when you know exactly how the shit they are getting themselves into is going to develop and end but there is nothing you can do to create a shortcut for them to skip all the mess and save all the time. You know that there is nothing you can say that would make sense to them now and stop them. Nothing. Because those exact very simple and logical things you want to say to them were said to you over and over again at their age but somehow they didn't make any sense at all to you then and you just thought that the people who said them were very very annoying and couldn't possibly comprehend the super unique issues of your super unique life.

If there isn't a word for this, I think we should create one.

I wonder if the Germans have it. They seem to have many cool ones:
http://topum.livejournal.com/12529.html

Comments

[beautesauvage13.livejournal.com]

I know this feeling..Haven't got a word for it but I have had this experience. 

It's frustrating but sometimes you just gotta let them go through it and learn the hard way. 

Hard as it is to just sit and watch them go through it. 

Athena

[diejacobsleiter.livejournal.com]

The picture might be fuller if we remember that older people look at us (steppping into our age's shit) with the same sad feeling.

[firecat]

Cassandra-ish?
Gnostalgic?

[bichoose.livejournal.com]

I remember all those bags of advice laid at my feet poured over my head that drifted across my mind..i always thought that my generation with flowers in the hair and music from Lennon to Dylan would change the world for a better place far greater than any generation and most of all we were right to think so..sadly there were not enough of us...i recall reading about a small group whom attended the isle of white pop festival i think around 1970ish...they are now bankers and have discarded such flowers in the hair as dross....as for a single word to say it all..is perhaps kamikaze...lol...as always take care...

[topum.livejournal.com]

I think that there is a much wider gap on this between a 20 years old and a 30 years old than there is between a 30 years old and a 40 or 50 years old for example. A much much wider one.

[diejacobsleiter.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, the age between 15 and 25 is the champion in stupidity, so even a 10-12 y.o. child can be wiser than 17 y.o. person. And yes, the gap berween 20 and any other age is the widest. But this is not the only one stupid age: the midlife crisis of 40s is quite a disaster too...

But my thought was that we do stupid things all our life; that's what we do. And there could always be an older man (or ourselves in an older age) who can say "What an idiot this youngster is (or I was)!"

[itsjustc.livejournal.com]

I had this experience only a few weeks ago and the person just wouldn't be told! She just went around in circles telling me the same stuff over and over, while I tried to talk her out of what she was about to do. After a while I just had to say to her "You know what? I've always said that you are a younger version of me and I wouldn't have listened to someone like me now when I was your age either. I've given you my advice but I know your not going to take it, so I'm afraid that I'm just going to have to leave you to make this huge mistake and for people to get cross with you and for them to fall out with you and not like you, and I think, as it was my case it will be the only way for you to learn from your mistake." She thanked me for the advice but told me she wouldn't be taking it, to which I said "I know!".