« Rules to Live By or Something | Main | Things just go from bad to worse, starts like a kiss it ends like a curse »

mg

when I change my life and all the scars have faded

by mg at 12:22 PM on December 01, 2003

There comes a point in every person’s life in which they are truly an adult. For the Jews, it comes at age 13, when a child is bar mitzvahed. Or in Burkina Faso, at age 8 when a girl’s clitoris is forcibly removed. For me, at age 27, still in possession of my complete clitoral hood, I can honestly say that the moment of passage into adulthood hasn’t quite happened. At least, if it has, I haven’t noticed.

I’ve heard a lot of talk recently about how Americans, as a cultural group, are pretty damned childish. For example, who’d ever have imagined the need for a video game rating system so children aren’t able to play video games made for adults. Who’d ever have thought 30 year olds would still be collecting toys, from the bizarre fascination with Beanie Babies to Todd MacFarland’s comic book collectible empire? How can we explain the popularity of “Dave and Buster’s”, a chain of bars/play-grounds, a sort of “Chuck E. Cheese” for “adults”?

It’s hard to imagine that anyone from as recent as my grandparent’s generation would sit around playing video games, or collecting dolls. I mean while corporations have to block access to Yahoo! Games so employees don’t waste their entire day, my grandfather, at age 80, still works, because he wants to.

You might say, and Tom Brokaw would probably agree, that the reason we “new” adults still play with toys is because we’ve never had to face any sort of real adversity in our lives. Our grandparents lived through the great depression and a world war. Even our parents lived through Vietnam, whether as soldiers or conscientious objectors.

What have we, really, had to struggle against in our lives?

Even 9/11 and the War on Terror, the most significant world event of this early century, has had very little effect on our daily lives. As 150,000 American soldiers live and fight and die in Iraq and Afghanistan every day, we here at home are lining up to see Cat in the Hat, worrying about whether Michael Jackson is innocent or guilty, and playing the latest Tom Clancy adventure game.

I don’t really know what my point is, because in life, if the choice is between struggle and comfort, why wouldn’t we choose comfort? But, I still have this gnawing thing inside me that says “Do something with your life,” “This isn’t enough,” and “Time to grow up.” I just wish I knew how to do that.

comments (21)

I guess it depends where you live; in the UK we’ve faced terrorism in the form of explosions or killings as a daily event for the last 90 or more years. Been through countless recessions, the Falklands war but to name a few. I’m not comparing with older generations but mine has, in the UK, been through it’s fair share of "wake ups" if that’s a term you could use.

I think growing up is about realising whom you are and where you want to go, the sum total of your life’s experience can either make or break that. I don’t believe in the word mistake, everything’s an experience, good and bad, each adding or taking something away from who you are, who you become and who you want to be. When all said and done only you can define the word "Adult" and what it means to you, don’t go from someone else’s judgements. That’s my advice.

by tek at December 1, 2003 12:46 PM


i'm more of a 'do as many interesting things as you can think of to do, and see which ones leed to newer, more interesting things' kind of guy. i can't imagine that you can find direction while you're actively thinking about it. it's likley more of one of those 'no thought' or 'no mind' things. you have to clear your head, and do things of value to have it all reveal itself to you.

kafka said it better:

"You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."

by lajo at December 1, 2003 1:53 PM


Great points MG. You illustrate how the novelty of adults expressing childlike traits is becoming passe - and how it might be time to act as adults again. Especially given the seriousness by which the American public remains unaffected by the loss of life of it's own citizens in the middle East. With 9/11 and the war in the middle East we still consume giant vehicles as a nation - with no regard for gas mileage - not out of necessity, but out of marketing and social pressures because we are blissfully unaware of the consequences of our actions - just like children. As for emotional maturity, the commonality of the terms "road rage" and "Jerry Springer" leads to me to believe we could do a little better.
I used to wonder where all the increased productivity we acheive through new technology goes - perhaps it gives us time to play video games?
(by the way if anyone sent me email in the last few weeks, I didn't receive it. I somehow fucked up a procmail recipe. All is fixed now. My love/hate relationship with procmail continues: see codendence/emotional maturity above)

by chris at December 1, 2003 2:03 PM


Great points MG. I don't game myself but have been told by friends of mine that it is one hell of a way to release stress. Stress? What stress? Did you have to wait in a long line at McDonalds, the DMV, the grocery store? I think our society has gotten very soft. I can just look at the difference between my nephews/nieces and myself or the difference between my Father and me. When I was young we played sports or ran around in the woods playing war, hide and seek, or kick the can. My nieces and nephews play video games. My Dad had to work on a farm from daybreak to dusk. With every generation we come up with convieniences to make our lives easier which frees up time. You have to fill it with something so we played outside, instead of working to help the family, and now kids, and some adults, play video games indoors for hours on end. I also hear you on the growing up thing. By my age my parents had two kids and were working on me. They had their own house, land, and both worked, sometimes two jobs each, by the time they were 24. They didn't have time to play video games. Even if they did have time they wouldn't have had the money to afford such a luxury. If they did have extra money they saved it for some future emergency. I think we've gotten very complacent as a society but I believe another large "wake up" is coming. I just hope we can muster the fortitude to overcome it.

by Ezy at December 1, 2003 3:09 PM


Our great depression is our lives. You should joion

In many European countries, it is customary to live with one's parents until 30. In Japan, everyone reads "comic books" in the form of manga books all the time. Collecting dolls isn't the same as playing with them, lots of adults collect baseball cards. I think none of the greatest generation ever did a lot of things we do because they weren't invented. Had they had access to Grand Theft Auto and internet skanky, they would have.

I've been interviewing veterans for months now and these guys have convinced me of one thing and that is that if our generation had been called on for a world war, we would've lived up to the challene too. Those guys new depravation from living throught the Great Depression, that isn't exactly 10 years of combat training.

read fight club sometime MG, it deals with a lot of this stuff (and its different than just watching the movie).

by Eff at December 1, 2003 3:11 PM


i'm not so sure we're up to the challenge, eff. are we, as a generation, up to fighting a WWII style war right now? maybe. i think we probably could. but with every passing ten years we become more inneffectual as a society. we push buttons now, not bayonets.

fuck, in 2000 years, should we ever get that far, skin color might not even be a determining factor when deducing where one's lineage evolved from. for all we know, and from what i cynically suspect, you'd be able to tell a line of people who decended from the post industrial/post technological age in north america as the ones with the devolved legs, zipping around on water powered, segway version 21.0's. what if one dark day in the "comfortable" future, breathing tubes may become en vogue among the rich, to illustrate, for the poorer society at large, that "breathing is tough, and it's not something one does when one has the priveledge to do otherwise"? eventualy it'll be mass marketed to us poor slobs. in that case, screw comfort.

we're getting softer, and more prone to distractions. i don't see any other trend in the US to lead me to believe otherwise. it's sad, but it's also not a given that you have to live that way. i'll dredge up another kafka quote that goes something (inaccurately) like this:

"if i paid any attention to advertisements, i'd spend all my time wanting things"

that plus the fact that modern day advertising and programming are insulting to anyone who stops to think about it, are why i just can't stomach t.v., or pop culture magazines. hell, i can't even go to grocery stores anymore. you can live a good life from corner store produce, with all of the selection and less of the brainwashing.

chris, i didn't gather that the novelty of childlike adults is becoming passe, from mg's post...nor from what i see around me. why is adult life so intense that the desire to become distracted by games so much greater? the desire isn't greater, but the games are. it's a supply/demad game turned upside down in the age of advertising. lately, supply dictates demand, and not the opposite. advertisers, etc. just dream up shit and invent the needs that come along with that to make us buy, buy, buy. it has nothing to do with demand generating supply.

and damn, if anyone need to play a good video game to break from a harrowing life, it's ye olde people.

they don't even know from the vicious pain of crippling, thumb cramping.

by lajo at December 1, 2003 4:27 PM


Despite circumstance, I think everyone has the same basic struggle. Which is why, when it comes to meaning and happiness - it's not really a choice between comfort and struggle, so much as "how would you like your struggle?" Circumstance might be considered something of a focus factor. Adversity provides focus for effort. There are poor people who struggle and are unhappy, there are rich people who are comfortable (physically) who do not struggle, and are also unhappy. I think people find happiness and meaning through creativity. We all have to work, but I think how that effort leaves an impression on the world relates to how full our lives can be. Necessity is the mother of invention, and we are happy when we are inventing. Thus we are happy when we have needs and we are finding ways to meet those needs. Comfort is not necessarily the absence of struggle, rather it's knowing how to pick the right struggle.

by chris at December 1, 2003 4:40 PM


Lajo, I agree that modern day programming and ads are quite often crap. Though I think we would be up to the challenge of a war (as young men(?) with national pride are almost always willing to rush off to battle). I disagree that we are becoming ineffectual as a society because we push buttons. In fact I think the complete opposite. As for games, I think they provide an easy pipeline for sucking people's attention. Rather than struggling to apply differential equations to modeling the latest findings in molecular biology, it's easier to not learn programming or math and throw in the latest XBox disk, it's a more accessible struggle, albeit with a different outcome.
I also disagree that advertisers just "dream up shit and invent the needs..." If you've ever done any marketing you realize that you're thirsting to feed a fire that is already smoldering, and you're looking for just the right thing to get it blazing - but the notion, the need, is already there. Lastly, devolving ones legs will take longer than 2000 years barring some unforeseen accelerant. Damn, I'm so prone to distractions!

by chris at December 1, 2003 5:00 PM


chris, you're a nitpicking darwinist, but i like it.

i do disagree with one thing, based on the premise that not all advertising works the same. some advertising is geared towards inventing a problem of modern day living by offering the solution before the problem ever exists. i see the SUV phenomenon as budding this way. no one needed these monsters before they were suddenly told that the weather is sometimes inclement, or dammit, everyone needs a good off-roading now and again...even you, soccer moms. no one saw non-SUV living as a problem until someone invented it.

by lajo at December 1, 2003 5:59 PM


Things took a philosophical turn here. Here's my 2 cents: Each successive generation has faced less adversity (except the rich.) And while many indicators, like life expectancy, have improved drastically, we as a people seem sicklier by the year. Just look at all the diseases and remedies. Maybe cavemen didn't realize they had post-traumatic stress disorder after being mauled by a raging mastodon. Maybe they just didn't know they suffered from sick cave syndrome. But I don't think so.

And Lajo, I love that quote. I used it as the opening to my as yet unpublished book, along with that old Aurelius adage: The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the eye and know them for what they are.

Now let's talk about strippers.

by anna at December 1, 2003 6:45 PM


Love the quote as well, I'd actually used that as my email signature (.sig file, for the geeky), as long ago as 1995.

As for whether we'd have the fortitude, as a nation, to struggle, survive, and win - it's is questionable. The U.S. death totals throughout the Viet Nam war average out to about 7,000 a year, over the course of nine years. While any loss of life is unwanted, that less than 500 US soldiers have died in Iraq in 9 months has most Americans running in fear. To imagine the general American population getting behind a prolonged, more engaged conflict, and god forbid, a draft, is beyond imagination. I can just never see that happening again.

by mg at December 1, 2003 6:58 PM


as if this article didn't cross some fibers in this here thread.

by lajo at December 1, 2003 10:00 PM


Struggle IS my comfort. The happiest times of my life have been when I was the busiest. It’s hard to feel blue when there are art projects due, Mario Kart races to win, road trips to friend’s, Chuck Palahniuk novels to read, deadlines looming, bitchy girlfriends to avoid, dorms to trash, and so on … The trick to finding comfort in struggle is to have an interest in the struggle and make it intentional. It’s like a controlled fall.

Now that I’m an ‘adult’ I’m bored. I don’t have enough to do. I’m not being distracted all the time and I’m starting to FEEL and I’m starting to THINK. I’m realizing that my future is blank and unscripted. I’m not interested in things I used to love and chemical imbalance, or not – I don’t care what the makers of Zoloft say – a little pill isn’t going to make the uncertain go away. Paul Cezanne summed it up when he said, “It’s so fine and yet so terrible to stand in front of a blank canvas.” I am that blank canvas and I’m standing face-to-face with myself and it scares the piss out of me.

Fuck that Kafka shit. It’s been over three years and I’m tired of waiting on the world to make the first move.

by MrBlank at December 2, 2003 1:09 AM


I think that's part of the thing, Blank. _Everyone_ is starting to feel and think, because our lives are getting easy to the point that it's all we have left to do. We don't have the Depression or World War Two to consume all of our worrying capacity. We're not worried about the draft in the shack we moved into after leaving the Dust Bowl, or whether the world's going to fall to the Commies, so we've moved on to worrying about other things that have always been problems, but that had previously taken the back seat.

by jean at December 2, 2003 4:43 AM


I'm definitely not as busy as I was, say, my final year in college (which, at some periods, had 70 scheduled hours a week). I also don't feel as "fulfilled" as I did then, either. I'm beginning to take some steps toward filling my life with "meaningful" hours, rather than with Madden, TV, and pointless weblogging.

Oops, strike that last part. Have I mentioned you all should visit my photo and eGov blogs recently?

by mg at December 2, 2003 11:35 AM


Jean, kind of like the way agriculture transformed society from hunter gatherer to people in one stable place being fed by farmers such that some section of society had time and means to specialize in new things. Perhaps computers and robotics are the modern seeds and information is the wheat. How will we unfold next?
As for boredom and meaningful struggles, I got bored once about 15 years ago, and then something happened and it seems like I haven't had a free moment since. Computers burn energy whether they are idle or actively crunching a problem. Likewise, your brain can crunch TV, video games, or real world problems - but you only have so much CPU time. What are you going to fill it with?

by chris at December 2, 2003 12:24 PM


Exactly, Chris! I really don't think I can see where "our" (America's) awareness is currently headed. I can only speak for myself :)

by jean at December 3, 2003 3:09 AM


Not to change the subject but someone has been rooting around in your musty archives again, MG. It always freaks me out when they comment on a long-forgotten post of mine. Today I was notified that a comment was added to "Hit Me With Your Best Shot, Fire Away": I just believe in justice being served, I also believe that a person serving time in prison would suffer more than a person who recieves the death penalty. And I do agree. Problem is, I have no idea what that post was about.

by anna at December 3, 2003 7:52 AM


Hi everyone. We all believe modern life makes us sick, and the more we make antidotes, the more the modern world comes up with another disease to get rid of. Why don't you all come to Australia and we can start a self-sustaining farm and never haveto complain about our suffering from boredom becuase we will be up at dawn and in bed just after sun set and in between tending our land in order to survive. Would you all like to do that? Food would taste so much better, and we would only get drunk on a very special occasion!

by Asiah at December 15, 2003 7:31 PM


I TOTALLY AGREE WITH WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. I TELL WOMEN I AM A STAY AT HOME MOTHER WITH TWO SMALL GIRLS AND MY HUSBAN IS THE 'BREAD WINNER' AND THEY LOOK AT ME AND SAY THEY ARE SO JEALOUS AND HOW LUCKY I AM. MIND YOU AS THEY DRIVE OFF IN A NEW SPORTS CAR THATS AROUND 45000.00 AND THERE I GO AWAY IN MY TEN YEAR OLD CARAVAN. WHAT MY POINT IS WE ARE LIVING IN A FAST PACED WORLD AND PEOPLE NEED TO SLOW DOWN AND FIND WHAT REALLY MATTERS IN THERE LIFE TO ME, IT WAS BEING THERE FOR MY GIRLS EVERYDAY TO GET ON AND OFF THE BUS AND HAVING NEW CARS AND BRAND NEW HOMES DIDNT MEAN ANYTHING TO ME OR MY HUSBAND. THANKS ALOT.

by wendy d. at March 18, 2004 12:12 PM


I agree with Tek that it'd depend on where u (anyone who still doubt for their state of lives) live or "the situations" surrounding u. And I'm focusing on the term "going adult" as "awakening". However, as if u r living in the most peaceful place, u still could definitely fullfill your life by making yourself awake to every second, every move and every breath of your life. And that could be achieved by the way of living zen, for example.
After all living consciously, we should know what to do next.

One life, live it.

by PJ at December 2, 2004 2:00 AM