I remember my 80s, which coincided with my teenage years, with all clarity. For parts of my generation, it was about having to fill time with something; the emptiness became frightening if there were no activities and short-term projects to "live" through. Everything from my childhood in the 70s with team sports like football and handball, also a lot of ping-pong and cross-country skiing, collecting comics, watching TV, collecting stamps, all overlapping. Then music and literature. Hobbies which could sometimes provide some income. The contact networks quickly became broad with like-minded people with shared bad taste.


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Of course, I had some acquaintances in my teens who had no real plans for the future, some didn't have the energy to do anything, or couldn't find anything that was interesting enough. Often the idea was that others were already doing this and there was no room left for them to participate.

"You have the music and we have nothing."

Two friends of mine were sitting in my living room, looking at me sincerely. I was already so immersed in music in different ways that I saw it as a given for my identity and something I didn't even think about.

"You have something to do while we're just hanging out."

I hung out with these two and others a few times during periods, which was completely pointless to the point that I usually gave up when the boredom became too much. Walking around town or fooling around in parks, or around our own neighborhoods, looking for other teenagers to talk nonsense with. We can give social skills some kind of meaning to our bonding as a group, but by and large it was a waste of time.

Something I'll never forget was when I had prepared to write and really do something with my life. I was sitting in front of the typewriter and was completely clear about what I was going to do and felt that now it will happen. I'm now saving my life from becoming a zero. Then the doorbell rings and two friends want to take me out. I hesitate, but I give in to peer pressure. I never got back to that motivation afterwards. A subconscious plan? Of course, it was my own fault for having such a hard time saying no to someone or something.

Something I didn't put up with with these exercises in killing time were the burglaries and the few knife robberies these two acquaintances carried out a couple of times. They always needed a little money and wanted to fill their lives with events so that something happened. By the way, I was there as a lookout during a burglary at a low-budget clothing store called Skokanonen and also helped to hide away some clothes. I remember them laughing nervously while they ran and scrounged back and forth with the stolen goods. That tickle of danger and the excitement it gives creates a feeling that you are really alive at that moment and exist. A kind of sharpness occurs when you have your senses on high alert.

It was very modest crimes. The most serious thing I was involved in and the leader of was a kiosk burglary. We were about twenty teenagers in a loosely organized "gang" in the area who stole some candy, stole goods from railway wagons (We had about a hundred Trivial Pursuit games that we couldn't sell, for example.), stole LP records, stole coffee bread at night from Skogaholm and Konsum bakeries as a group, I myself got caught for vandalism and the seriousness of the whole mess made me give up all my crime at seventeen after I got the paperwork that I risked going to prison once I turned eighteen.

I had a small career in music and some income, so for me it was all just unnecessary, a filler for my actual life. It was about peer pressure and a little excitement, but I had more friends than these who behaved better and they were the only ones I later hung out with. Furthermore, I didn't drink or use any kind of drugs, which a couple of the others did, so the whole thing ultimately had no real impact on my life.

TEENAGE REBELLION

There was also a feeling that you were defying "society's authority" and thereby confirming your superiority and self-worth by taking what those pigs had already stolen. Justice was in the fact that everything should be equal and what you don't have to fill the quota for economic equilibrium, you have the moral right to take. Screwed up, but that's how many people still think, getting caught in a blind self-defense for all their actions. It's rare that they admit any mistakes and are happy to cover it all up with explanatory models that absolve them of all responsibility.

More complexly, there was sometimes a subconscious desire to get caught for something almost insignificant like shoplifting, as this led to the police and experiences, further conflicts at home, etc. It can be so boring that you just want something to happen. These guys weren't just outcast suburban kids with no future. Half of them came from academic families who lived in expensive large apartments, or villas in a prosperous area.

It was more play than serious and most of these teenage thugs can be found today functioning reasonably well in society.