...a post on maturity.
I swear, if I don't talk about this while I'm still in that nebulous realm of "young adult" then I'll never be taken seriously. Interpret the following as the cantankerous assault on youth culture of an elderly man, on a bus where all the other passengers quietly wish he'd just get off at the next stop, if you must. But baby darling, it simply ain't.
I am plenty aware that puberty rituals are completely arbitrary contrivences, no matter how deep their roots penetrate our history and culture, the point of origin will always be the same: Some person, some where, just decided that behaviour X marks you as mature or immature. We choose these meanings, they have no bearing in natural law as gravity and weather patterns do. That being said, the meme of immaturity is getting way out of hand in several generations - including my own.
Or is it just a cultural shift?
For the sake of not going on a (longer?) tirade, I'll just use one specific example. When I see a man wearing a business suit, suitcase in hand and walking on his way to work I think "there is an adult". I see the same man pinching his suit jacket up with a backpack and I begin to wonder if the bigger businessmen are going to try and steal his juice box at lunch. But really, does it matter what he brings his important papers (and juice box) to work in? Couldn't it be the tanned and treated skin of camel for all it matters? Well to a point...but infinite subjectivity is a gutless argument and one which if properly applied would render all things meaningless. We've decided that this and that mean such and such, so let's play by the rules we wrote.
Besides, Maturity does not have to be the death of fun or humour and it is a marvelous tool towards greater self-respect and ability to wrestle with whatever beasts the world might throw your way. The perks are all too often forgotten and a good deal of the negative aspects are really just frequently made assumptions instead of genuine side effects. I'll tell you, I'm sick of the youth culture worship in Western society and few things would please me more than to see this trend reversed.
I mean hey, I get the allure - I've given in to it too. Retreating into youth fools you into feeling further from death, further from the problems and responsibilities you're wrestling with today. Teenagers often try to act older because they want to be able to drive, to drink, to be at a point where their bodies don't make them feel awkward and they have more developed social skills. But I've seen all too many people in their early to late twenties who are are wearing and doing the exact same shit they did in their teens but with the addition of legally purchased alcohol and the ability to enter venues which sell it. This worries me, it really does! Not because of some offense to my delicate sensibilites but because the major ingredient of immaturity is stagnation.
Can we please push things forward?
Maybe I am simply a big party pooper? I guess I'm giving in to some ill-defined evil which makes me want to have the more traditional trappings of adulthood? Perhaps, but if the possability of my being wrong is to be considered then it is only fair to consider the possability of my being right or at least on the right track. I'd love to hear what anybody has to say in the comments section of this post becuase it's an issue I've been coming back to for a couple of years now and I do not feel my thoughts on the matter are nearly as solid as they are on, say, climate change*. Anyways, that "whoomph" noise you just heard was me dismounting a rather tall horse - I suppose. But seriously, your thoughts are invited - I feel quite inarticulate with this post because half the time I've tried to rattle off a sub-topic I find myself getting part way through, then just deleting it.
Is there some broad method of approaching this or is it a highly specific, case-by-case issue?
*I don't like it, no sir. It makes me sad and sometimes I bake a little cake to feel better. The cake will have raisins more often than not.
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11 comments:
I have to agree with you. I think it's become more accepted to stay a teenager for what seems like forever.
I am continually shocked when I meet people that are 24, 25, 26, etc. and the highlight of their week is still how smashed they got. Or they still have to have their parents bail them out on the rent. Or they're still floating around, deadbeat job to deadbeat job, because they haven't "found themselves" yet. Putting things off all the time because the conditions aren't 100%- the "I'll do one day, when everything is perfect" attitude.
Maybe this makes me a snot, but whenever people say "Oh, you're 22 and you've done so much!" there's a loud LOUD voice in my head that says "I haven't done anything that spectacular, I've just done SOMETHING"
I don't get it. I think your word "stagnation" really says it all.
I suspect this is a case by case issue, but you are very right here. Stagnation is the perfect word. You can't cling to the illusion of youth and grow as a person. Instead you become like Michael Jackson and molest children. Worse, as any fan of evolution knows, there is only primary result of stagnation is extinction. I predict that in ten years time we will be seeing the most pathetic group of 30-year olds in many, many years.
Me, I enjoy what I enjoy and I'm not going to change that, but I'm going to work to improve myself and develop a career that I can be satisfied working in. I know that my youth is as fleeting as my hairline and I'm not going to attempt to cling to the old days. Now if you will excuse me, I must hide my juice box from the other librarians.
"Worse, as any fan of evolution knows, there is only primary result of stagnation is extinction."
I had a lot to say, but Tom bringing Darwinian theory into this makes my entire life. I'm sure you're able to understand why that might be.
Yes! But others might not - Shawn is referring to the fact that he is now reading Richard Dawkins "The God Delusion", which extensively applies Darwinian theory to its arguments. At one point it makes almost the precise statement that Tom did, though in a different context.
I worry a little, you know, with so many professional teenagers about...how will this hinder society at large as they get older? Kate wisely brings up the financial angle of immaturity, which reminds me of how many warning of becoming a peniless senior citizen I've seen in England. Currently there is already a bit of a problem with people hitting their 60's and retiring with nought because they never got out of the habit of living hand-to-mouth so they can keep up with the jonses.
Where the fuck are the group I'm talking about now going to be when they hit 60 and have nothing to show for savings but a long line of discarded, formerlly top of the line, cell phones, video game systems, cars etc etc?
hey.. hey.. HEY. I'm 24 and getting smashed is still the highlight of my week... but I'm doing it in DIFFERENT cities. Thank you.
I've just spent the past ten minutes trying to come up with excuses for why people are still in deadbeat jobs, doing the same thing,etc. All of them, however, were flawed. There are no excuses. Get out there and work.
So to end, don't hate the player, hate the game. And my old ass will be at the club, dancing to electo pop like it's 1984.
So is to say you'll be dancing like you're two years old?
I don't know Rob, I wouldn't group you in with whom I'm talking about because you are working towards a rewarding career. That you have your BA already seperates you from a lot of the bunch (the only teenager with a BA is Dr. Howser and he ain't real no matter how much I drink).
So I suppose it would be worth adding to the definition of the overgrown teenager an inability to follow through on ambitions, if ambitions are head at all. But what else?
If ambitions are "heard" at all. Tits on a bun, I wish you cold edit comments without deleting them.
could
irony
fuck me
I think the "following through on ambitions" line is key, and frankly, too many people nowadays just don't have any.
I think it boils down to the "White Knight Syndrome"- there's this attitude that a white knight is going to swoop in and take all your problems away- give you a good job, have you win the lottery, etc. This attitude that "hey, I can't afford to drink this much AND pay rent, but somehow it'll all work out", whether it's your parents bailing you out, the government, a significant other, or a handsome stranger.
Oliver: The 84 comment: it's from an Arctic Monkeys song. They're supposed to be huge in London... aren't you getting out and going to see some music. Don't you read NME? Mixmag? Man, if I was you, I'd be running 'round Lodon partying my face off. So much for maturity....
Rob: Oh! I'm afraid I haven't listened to them yet, so the Monkeys exist purely as an entity of hype in my mind at this point. I'd be partying my ass off more if I had more compatriots! And though I consider myself a sociable guy, I just don't have your uncanny ability for bringing a kind of personal party ecosystem with me from place to place. Hopefully things will take an upswing in this arena from my joining the Panico film society and going to one of those notorious SA Goon Meets in a couple of weeks.
Kate: This is true! It makes it all the harder not to become a totally synical mysanhrope.
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