On Young Adulthood

Biologically speaking, there are six stages in the human life cycle:

1. Prenatal
2. Baby/Infant/Todler/thing
3. Child
4. Adolescent
5. Adult
6. Geriatric/Aged/Pre-Dead

Each of those has a definable gear-up period, a dominant characteristic in homeostasis and a definable transition to the next phase. You are a fetus which isn't yet a separate person (geographically speaking), then it's born and it is suddenly a baby.

Babies aren't real people. They don't do much of anything, really, besides absorb as much nourishment as they can and expend most of their energy trying to metamorphose into a tiny thing capable of replicating Real Person behavior. When they can communicate with others and start to interact of their own accord, moving about under their own power, they have gradually managed to become a child.

Children are basically Tiny Dumb People. They are not stupid (yet), they are merely uneducated. Their purpose is to learn the ways of the world so that they will be capable of surviving to adulthood and reproducing. They spend most of their time in school and pretending that they are already grownups.

Then puberty hits and suddenly we have teenagers. Adolescence is a bitch, but it's the cocoon phase, an apt analogy considering how many times the average teen will vow something to the effect of, "I'm never leaving my room ever again!" Luckily, puberty ends and we're left with, naturally speaking now, a viable adult. The body is not going to grow in weird ways again for a few decades, eyesight will stabilize for a time and hair stops growing in places you didn't already need to keep warmer.

Adults are just the longest period of homeostasis wherein you are expected to pass on your genetics as much as possible until your body starts to fail. Old Age then, is more the process by which Adulthood transitions into Death, but considering how long it takes and that an individual can have a long, productive existence after their genitals stop working effectively, I would consider this a separate stage in life development. The ultimate, usually gradual failure of various body functions is what inevitably kills the Old As Dirt.


I now propose a seventh stage of human development, to be recognized between the transition to biological adulthood and what would societally be recognized as functional adulthood. It's the period where, yeah, you could, I suppose, have kids and make a living for yourselves and them, but it'd really be better for everyone in your genetic line to just wait, accrue some financial security and some business acumen before making the well-pondered decision to add a twenty-year burden to your own existence.

I was listening to music in the car when Ke$ha came on and asked if I wanted to have a slumber party in her basement. You are twenty-three years old, Kesha. And you have millions of dollars, not including the ones you format your name with. (Aside: Are those her dollars? I wonder if she's actually quite poor because every time someone actually writes her name with the little dollar symbol she has to pay for it. It must be so, because I can't imagine anyone willingly doing this on their own.)

Now, I'm twenty-four, and I still live in my mother's house, but I'm a poor starving artiste. I don't have money. I don't even have a basement. Granted, I have very nice things, but I'm a year older than Kesha and my endeavors aren't the kind that pay a salary until I've finished and sold them. Ostensibly, Kesha has her own basement. I don't understand why we have to sleep down there? Can't we just boink in her room? I'm sure she has a very nice bed. I'm pretty sure I've even seen it in music videos. It looks quite comfortable after a wicked bender.

Ke$ha, sweetie, most of the time we sleep in bathtubs because
we're too poor to afford a hotel room with more than two beds
and a couch. It's okay to go home to your mansion at night.

And that brings it back to my point: Kesha is a role model, sadly, and she is younger than I am. More than that, she's societally recognized as a commercially successful person who is biologically speaking an adult. Even considering the percentage of her life that is acting irresponsibly, she's still making the conscious choice to be irresponsible. I'm not saying that's invalid, actually, it's a wonderful, hedonistic existence with few consequences when you get to be that level of rich and famous. Frankly, it's what everyone our age strives for. And if you succeed, well, you just netted a boat load of cash for you and your future family, didn't you? It's a low-stakes gamble with tremendous pay-offs for the winners. It's a lotto for meteoric rises in the world of famous douchery.

I think we can all agree this is not responsible adult behavior, whether or not it has its own validity and charm. This is why we need a newly recognized stage in human development, with a name that acknowledges the optimistic and idyllic attempts at actively being a beautiful and unique snowflake, before conservative judgment and normality overtake the hope and crush it into a tidy fear of failure.

Since it stopped being acceptable to use the word "retarded," I vote we use that.

'Tis The Season

A lot of people don't know this about me, considering my usually dower, sarcastic demeanor and the widely known information that I was raised Jewish, but I am all about Christmas.

Not the Jesus-y stuff, mind you, though my mom was Christian and he was at the bare minimum a wise Jewish scholar with some pretty sweet ideas about Buddhism. No, I tend more to prefer the pretty commercial aspects of Christmas more firmly routed in Danish, Germanic, Roman, commercial and Coca-Cola-ist culture. Trees and presents and big parties and the spirit of giving and whatnot.

How adorable is that?

I enjoy the spirit of the holiday. I'm trying this new thing where I'm nice to everyone and start personal interactions with the premise that people are intelligent, interesting and inherently good natured. I know, I'm surprised too. But the amazing thing is that around Christmas, people just start accepting this kind of behavior as a seasonal blessing, much like a good harvest or the breakup of an icy river which prevents roving packs of wolves from thinning your herds come early Spring.

Or those pesky ewoks eating up your campy berries.

Christmas is the one time of year when random acts of kindness aren't seen as something duplicitous. Sometimes they're even passed on. I like to think every time I flag down a passing car to receive the choice parking spot I am about to vacate, somebody has a pleasant surprise and that makes them happier throughout the next portion of their day. Maybe then they do something nice for someone else, or maybe they just won't be dicks to other people like usual. Even monsters can be nice at Christmas time.

I named him Bruce.

So this is my promise to you, Internet: I will honor Christmas. It's past, present and it's future, both in my heart and all the year long. And should I turn into some kind of deranged, soul-searching Charlie Brown, well I've already got that covered and I'm okay with it:

"You Go And Then I Go"

A phrase has been puttering in the back of my mind recently. "You go and then I go. You go and then I go."

Jon Stewart said this at the Rally To Restore Sanity (and/or Fear) at the end of October. He used some horribly congested roadway outside Washington, D.C. to symbolize collective rationality. As a great number of lanes merge down to a single stream of cars, "You go then I'll go," is the prevailing attitude. Yes, he said, there will be some assholes who ride up the shoulder and cut in line, but we all hate them. Everyone else tends towards cooperation.

I believe this is either out of selfish fear or (meaninglessly) selfish hope. We let others go first so that the next person will do the same for us. Perhaps this is out of fear that they will not if we do not do the same. Perhaps it is out of hope that others will treat us the way we would wish to be ourselves.

Sadly, I tend towards the fear angle, because it's the only thing that seems to make any sense from the way I've seen people drive.

I was heading into work a couple days ago during a fairly bad rain storm. Now, having gone to a very moist college, I wasn't too hindered by the rain, but even I was a bit tepid driving through a series of blacked-out traffic lights on a six-lane highway. But do you know what I saw?

"You go and then I'll go. You go and then I'll go."

Across six lanes, school buses, pick-ups, big-rigs, compacts, minivans, everyone was being courteous. Three lanes willfully gave up right-of-way to a couple of vehicles trying to make it across the busy street. These drivers then yielded to our three lanes because we had rounded a corner into this mess and it was easier to let us go and pass undisturbed through our wake.

I say it was a common fear of the road conditions that spurred us to kindness and good will. Cooperation in the face of possible death has always been Man's greatest tool in evolving grand-scale society.

Do you say differently? Do you believe perhaps instead it was kindness that prevented collisions that day? Perhaps the poor conditions simply tugged at our heartstrings and helped us decide to be better people than usual, because everyone deserves to be treated well, even on a bad day.

Well then why the hell don't people drive like that on a calm Spring day?