A while ago I’d stumbled across a reference to a book written by some woman (if anyone can find it, please post the link), that was a diatribe on what she felt was a great cancer in American society – and that was that some adults were not acting like adults. Here’s an excerpt from another blog on the subject of teachers who had facebook/myspace accounts who evidentially had lives:

“I thought that this quote summed up the point of the article very well. These adults did not take their positions or age seriously. In our society, the point of growing up has not been pushed to a later date. This point in life just seems to have just disappeared. There is no longer an age when young adults are expected to begin acting like full-fledged adults.”

I’m still working on figuring out the problem. Now granted, if teachers are posting out porn videos, that’s one thing, but in the simple scheme of things with the modern connected age, people have begun to sort out that you can be a functional adult (with a productive day job, home, family), but you can actually still have a life.

Thinking back to the “adults” I knew of when I was growing up – they tended to be relatives or friends of the family. How often did they ever get together to do something? Or do anything for that matter that wasn’t something utterly inane like fishing. Now there’s nothing wrong with fishing, but if you do it as a solitary outing, every weekend, for decades, it’s a tad much. They had few friends overall, it seemed to always be superficial, and a rather lonely life.

The geeks and nerds of the late 70s to today started a trend in that when they got out of college. They didn’t stop having their friends, their hobbies, or anything else for that matter. This didn’t mean that they suddenly became dysfunctional, only that they could still enjoy life rather than simply have their best aspirations be that they would have a satisfying life.

Especially conservatives seem to have the notion that having fun is a sin on some level. That it’s improper and unseemly. Bugger that. So you can go out to the Opening Gala all in black tails and prim. They haven’t fully embraced the idea that there’s a higher level of being able to do that, then a month later go to burning man, then be back home to weekly movie and gaming nights along with western martial arts.

Ironically there’s also plenty of postings and articles about how children are growing up too fast with too much information at their fingertips. Childhood as the 20th century came to know it, was a relative aberration in child development over history. Now we can begin to look towards children knowing more, and adults playing more. Neither is particularly a bad thing, as it allows a person to be more balanced and developed as a whole. Rather than only having one or two areas of any insight whatsoever.

Notice that when you go to the annual Halloween stores that appear out of thin air each year – what’s the balance anymore between childrens costumes and costumes and stuff for grown ups. When I was growing up the holiday was pretty much an all-kids affair except for parties at the frat houses. Now it’s as much or more for adults to come together and have a party.

If anything the new predilections give adults more of a chance to NOT be solitary, but rather to be part of a number of social circles and activity groups rather than being left alone by themselves night after night. 

I’ll post more on this later, but I’d been meaning to get a start on this sooner rather than later before I forgot about it again.

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