It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded.
It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life.
They must discover for themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is another nail driven into the body on the cross of life.
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I'm a career high school teacher, 67, semi-retired as of this year but I still teach a philosophy course for the school's high achieving students. Based on that, and based on my own younger years (including as a high-achieving student at the same high school), I think that Maugham speaks truth here--most kids are very conflicted, striving in brutal competition to live up to the ideals they have been fed ("You MUST work hard so you can go to a top university or else you are screwed and none of your dreams will come true!"). They are immersed in that competition, as well as in the unavoidable teen struggle for identity, with mating pressures, and of course with family problems and the need to differentiate while part of a culture in which young people still need support from parents. I can look back on it and think, "Ah, wouldn't it be great to be young again!" But the truth is that, most of the time, I was miserable when younger, while most of the time I'm happy now.
It was a different time for Maugham I suppose. Books fulfilled a different role than they do now. The greatest lie I was told and it is still being told, is the myth of progress - that all this … this capitalism, democracy, technology etc. is moving us toward a better future. Quite the opposite I’m afraid.