ABSTRACT
So much wanting. So much longing. And so much pain, so close to the surface, only minutes deep. Destiny pain. Existence pain. Pain that is always there, whirring continuously just beneath the membrane of life. Pain that is all too easily accessible. Many things - a simple group exercise, a few minutes of deep reflection, a work of art, a sermon, a personal crisis, a loss - remind us that our deepest wants can never be fulfilled: our wants for youth, for a halt to aging, for the return of vanished ones, for eternal love, protection, significance, for immortality itself. (Yalom 1989: 4)
SOME EMPIRICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS
This chapter represents an attempt to elaborate some of the theoretical concepts and views presented in Do The Right Thing. Lifestyle and Identity in Contemporary Youth Culture (Johansson and Miegel 1992a). Concepts such as identity, values and lifestyle have come to occupy a central position within contemporary cultural studies. In this final section, I will briefly touch upon three different problems in lifestyle and cultural research, and point towards some solutions to these problems.
