Personal responsibility, personal freedom. No, thanks?

Black, black mood tonight. I should really pay more attention to the maxim: A pessimist is never disappointed. Although I like to shroud myself in a protective layer of acerbic cynicism, I think I have a 'Disney' heart, deep down. Feel horribly disappointed in a couple of people today. But then I was stupid to expect so much. Why entrust your happiness in the hands of someone else?

In one of my favourite books, Douglas Kennedy's The Pursuit of Happiness, Sara and Jack - who are on the cusp of falling in love - are talking about what they believe in. Sara says she believes in responsibility:

It all comes down to the responsibility you have to yourself... When I look around me, and listen to my contemporaries talking, all I hear is stuff about how other people will work out life's problems for you. How getting married by the time you're 23 is a good thing, because suddenly you're relieved of the burden of freedom. Whereas I'm rather scared of entrusting my entire future to another person. Aren't they as fallible as I am? The moment you entrust your happiness to another person, you endanger the very possibility of happiness. Because you remove personal responsibility from the equation. You say to the other person, 'make me feel whole, complete, wanted.' But the fact is: only you can make yourself feel whole or complete.

I like that phrase: relieved of the burden of freedom. I think freedom can feel like a burden. Man is born free but is everywhere in chains. Why? Aren't those chains man-made? Germaine Greer: The fear of freedom is strong within us. I'm scared of my freedom, certainly.

A little list of favourite teen books:

• But Can the Phoenix Sing? (Christa Laird)
• Kiss the Dust (Elizabeth Laird)
• Stranger with my Face (Lois Duncan)
• The Giver (Lois Lowry)
• I am the Cheese (Robert Cormier)
• Alex (Tessa Duder)
• Feeling Sorry for Celia (Jaclyn Moriarty)
• Tomorrow When the War Began (John Marsden)
• People Might Hear You (Robin Klein)
• The Root Cellar (Janet Lunn)
• Tug of War (Joan Lingard)
• Malika (Valerie Valere)
• Looking for JJ (Anne Cassidy)