I especially appreciate your pointing out the lack of curioisity about why the universe is the way it is and not some other way - and why it is at all. It toubles me that so many shrug at those questions.
More directly, I believe the most important question for any teenager to ask is "what is the meaning of life?" The answer, which is often quite personal, sets one's course for decades to come.
Oh I do so agree with you here, Alamo-Girl! Yet a perceptive person might recall that such a question -- What is the meaning of life? -- cannot be addressed, let alone answered, without answering (consciously or unconsciously) Leibnitz's two great questions: Why are things the way they are, and not some other way? And why is there anything at all?"
One could try, I suppose. But I wouldn't bet money on the result.
Thank you ever so much for your excellent observation.