Lesson 1: All That Glitters Isn't Gold - Sometimes It's Pyrite

Everything that happens to us helps us become who we are as a person, life is simply a journey to becoming who you were meant to be and an opportunity to leave a legacy behind when you die. Throughout life we learn important lessons, have strange yet sometimes wonderful experiences, and find our place in this world. Our expectations of experiences and of where we belong are tinted by society's portrayal of ficticious worlds that everyone "should" belong to but seldom ever do. For the popcultured teens of the 21st Century, there are more Dan Humphreys than there are Chuck Basses, only, real life Dan doesn't get the ivy league school, the socialite or the fleeting acceptance into New York's Upper East Side elite. In fact, he seldom finishes school, bowing to the undeniable social caste system and turning to anti-depressing recreational facilities i.e. bong bashing on a Sunday afternoon.

In my day, Dan Humphreys didn't exist on TV - we had Dawson Leery and Jen Lindley, naive children with a penchant for vocabulary that far surpasses even the scholarly Americans with many letters after their names. Things weren't as black and white then as rich versus poor, they were coloured with teenage angst, sexual confusion, sexual frustration, jail bird parents and Bible thumping grandparents but in both cases the message is still the same - your life isn't as half as interesting as these pretend people living their pretend lives with their pretend dramas pretending to be every day individuals.

From Fame to Gossip Girls, One Tree Hill and Smallville too, there are many lessons to be learned. One important one is that no matter how you look at it, WPIX11/WB11/CW11/whatever the hell else they choose to rename it 11 will always have prettier people than the rest of Earth combined. But the most important lesson is that as much as these people portray a lifestyle that is as appealing as an unattended pastry counter, there's also a helluva lot of unnecessary drama and baggage that come along with it. Don't try to fashion yourself after these people thinking a flashy life of fame and affluence will make you happy (and don't obssess over the fact that you will never be one of them) because remember all that glitters isn't gold - sometimes it's pyrite, and that's about as useful as a hernia.