One of the problems of being perpetually 16 inside

is that my outer relationship to music, movies, all of culture, everyone and everything changes, but inside so much of me remains unchanged, the angry young man determined to beat the world.

When I first heard this song many years ago, and when I saw Cat Stevens perform it live, I desperately identified with the son, though I also wished for a father to try to caution me.

Now, I am a father, with a son nearly out of college, and yet I still identify with the son in this song.



It's odd to realize that this part of me is probably never going to change.  It's odder still to look in the mirror and see how much the rest of me has changed. No one outside my head will ever again confuse me with a young man, and yet inside my head, I am. 

Inside, I still am.