the fact that teenage angst exists is probably symptomatic of the fact that something IS wrong with society. I personally think that Singapore is sort of shielded from the full extent of this malaise because it is rather a sort of a social democracy without welfare benefits. yet we may be moving inexorably into some morass. i don't know.
you're in europe so you probably have a first hand account of how life is like there. i love europe. i admire how they could have beat the guts out of each other and within a short span of 50 years put aside all animosity, have a common currency, allow free movement within the EU and simultaneously swing social democrat.
but my friend who study there are extremely disillusioned by it. porn and red light districts abound. that's not such a bad thing, but nobody over here watches european porn cause its full of bestiality and insane hardcore S&M a la de Sade. thank god for japan. those are the extremem manifestations for the sexual liberation that has swept western civilisation and is going to sweep us. i doubt singapore will ever swing to such an extreme( it's not in our blood).
sexual liberation was a good thing. it liberated the individual, who wis now free to choose whom they loved, threw off the last chains of serfdom, allowed family planning and gave a chance to 17 year old girls who could have had their life screwed over. with liberation came choice. choice bewildered people and therefore there had to exist a system of information which could help people out. this tied in with the nascent mass media, the worship of the Beatles, Brigitte Bardot and a new liberalism which allowed us to be a more tolerant humanity, especially towards homosexuals.
this glorification of the cult of the body also generates what i feel is the real angst among teenagers today. not existential angst but the angst of growing old. that they have to do something important, have some meaning in life when life isn't supposed to have some intrinsic meaning. at least not one subscribed to you. meaning isn't something a lot of people can readily find there when they look, unless you have strong faith, love or moral principles and when they look and when i find nothing there, i'm scared out of my wits. because "THERE'S NOTHING WORSE THAN LEADING AN ORDINARY LIFE." - American Beauty. You'd better fuck before 35 or you have to use Viagra. and the only life worth living is a young one. nowadays we have movies of ugly ducklings turning into swans e.g. never been kissed. but a lot of people who think they're fat or ugly are so scared of being condemned to a life of solitary masturbation, that having experienced the pleasure emanating from their Krause's corpuscles, they would need that next level of physical intimacy, the warm glow of love. that's why clarence wants to be a plastic surgeon, because he wants to make people happy.
and when they do fall in love, it sometimes falls short and they refuse to call it love.
this isn't meant to be an optimistic opinion of the world today. fear has replaced hope and not even Islam will triumph against the combined might of Chinese and Western secularism. and because we'll never rid ourself of our fear of dying or even aging the need to gratify ourselves as quickly as possible will remain.
but at least we're tortured animals. we have the ability to say hmm this is not right and change it. but inevitably with this tension, knowing that things are not right, leads to depression but as long as its not despair. it's fine.