How do you 'know' what a 'better' time is

• When you play truant you have a better time.

• But how do you know what a better time is,

• or how do you learn what a better time is?

You become aware, in adolescence that there are many kinds of good time to be had, and that
they are often in conflict with each other.

When you betray yourself, when you let yourself down, you have misrecognised what your idea
of a good time is; or, by implication, more fully realised what your idea of a good time might
really be.

You thought that doing this – taking drugs, lying etc – would give you the life you wanted;
and then it doesn’t. You have, in other words, discovered something essential about
yourself; something you couldn’t discover without having betrayed yourself.
You have to be bad in order to discover what kind of good you want to be
(or are able to be).