You?

Writing, drawing comics (both of which I still do to this day when other useless crap that other people keep just expecting me to drop literally everything else for doesn't relentlessly waste all the time that exists) and riding my bike/otherwise gadding about the place were my favourite things to do.

Unfortunately my kids missed the gadding about the place phase because at the time where they should have been gadding (and in fact wanted to) I wouldn't let them be out unsupervised on their bikes because there were hoons around that ruined everything for everyone (they weren't violent or anything as far as I can tell, just monumentally mind numbingly stupid enough to think they were good drivers, I have told off several of the "children" who are now driving ager who think that doing 100 on the 50 roads is just fine because they're boring roads where nothing ever happens and they're good drivers).

Maybe those "asshole years" that some kids have is a natural evolutionary feature to say, time to go out into the world on your own.

Hey maybe! XD I think it's primarily hormonal, all of my kids were horrible between 12 and 15 to the point where I was absolutely kicking them out at 18 and if they ended up homeless that was entirely their fault and their problem (I did not seriously consider this at any stage, only briefly in my most enraged moments XD). The big two came good at 15 and Youngest is coming good now (at 17). All of them still live at home (Middle on a technicality as she mostly lives with her boyfriend and his family but they're back here sometimes).

now we have low-maturity adults who have been sheltered from a lot of the challenges in life, supported by family and teachers so they don't have to learn and build their own strategies to cope in the world

Selection bias yet again, I feel bad for anyone that has to deal with this or witness it as I've only ever heard second hand stories that make me wonder why.

perhaps if childhood was filled with rainbows and unicorns, I would be one of those overly sensitive people with no strategy to deal with hardship, which might make experience worse

As one of those kids whose childhood was basically rainbows and unicorns (even if I had literally no idea at the time and did my best to find things to be outraged about, how dare my parents not let me go hang out with my friends all hours, my friends get to do whatever they want, my parents are horrible for giving me a curfew! And really horrible making me do chores I don't want to do I have better things to do with my time! etc XD) that's not necessarily the outcome.

_{whenever J or other people would lament at me that our/their kids "had no idea how good they had it" I always point out that they have no way of knowing due to lack of context and won't know til they're older unless they happen to have/meet any friends who are in actually bad situations}

I am entitled to travel unharmed

Okay so I do run under this assumption and genuinely believe that this is an actual entitlement for everyone. That and the resting bitch face + occasional lizard stare has probably helped this me true for me and I have been wandering around at times and places where I shouldn't have been (taking public transport home at 2am in my youth and more recently traipsing home on the dodgy train line through what was a really sketchy neighbourhood at the time but has been improving over the years).

The problem I have with reality today is, it sucks

I don't know if it's a similar (living in fantasy world as described) or counter delusion that I have but I'm pretty determined to fix the reality around me and hope that other people pay it forward thus fixing the reality around them because that's pretty much all I can do.

It is pretty exhausting though and yeh it just sucks sometimes. But there's plenty more things that make it worthwhile, it just tends to not stick as much in brains that are hyperfocused on remembering only the bad things and the most extreme of good things.