arrested development
Happy Children's Day, fellow lost ones. We're not disentitled to rejoice.
How do you spot a grown-up? Is it by the way s/he dresses, "carries" her/himself (whatever that means; whoever uses this expression has obviously lived long enough to feel so weighed down as to want, if not need, to be carried), communicates with other grown-ups (and perhaps more importantly, to the less grown-up)? Or is it by the contents of her/his bag, cupboard, holiday plans? Or maybe, it has something to do with the ratio of time spent doing vs. planning (including justifying the anticipated doing), looking forward vs. looking back, daydreaming vs. nodding off uncontrollably at unexpected hours of the day. ...
Each day we execute a complex series of ostensibly grown-up actions: feeding/clothing/sheltering ourselves, determining the appropriate mix of work-rest-play, caring for others to the extent of our ability and willingness (admittedly not a function exclusive to adults, nor an inevitable characteristic), and securing the means for so doing. Most of us have, through years of trial-and-error, developed an adequate grasp on the boundaries of civility, propriety. Indeed, we embrace boundaries generally, such as those between work and non-work, friend and acquaintance, realistic and idealistic, plans and dreams. We come - unwittingly, inadvertently, without choice, one way or the other - to deriving self-worth from the perception of others, which is in turn derived through projection, in accordance with the intensity of our need to prove ourselves.
I don't know about y'all, but I seem to be doing okay with the looking-the-part part and getting nowhere with the feelin'-it bit. I have (or have prepared) answers to most of the questions I am likely to be asked on a regular basis [how my job/family/"spare time" is going; how I might pretty-up the work of my superiors at Work; why exactly I think a friend in distress deserves better and will one day, soon, find it; etc.] and none to the ones you'd think, I'd thought too, I'd have figured out by now [too vague to even offer examples].
I end, abruptly as usual, and not all that relevantly, with a housemate's summary of our cohabitation arrangement: four people with [separate and distinct] dysfunctional childhoods trying to be (become?) functional together is in itself cause for celebration. I like to think of the world as little more than an intricate web of households not unlike ours, held together by inexplicable connections which, scrutinised up close, necessarily escape detection but if taken at high enough a level of abstraction, would appear as "snow" on a "blank" TV screen - intriguing and pretty for the first few seconds of the first time you ever see it, but thereafter quite pointless and increasingly nauseating. So it probably doesn't matter either way.
How do you spot a grown-up? Is it by the way s/he dresses, "carries" her/himself (whatever that means; whoever uses this expression has obviously lived long enough to feel so weighed down as to want, if not need, to be carried), communicates with other grown-ups (and perhaps more importantly, to the less grown-up)? Or is it by the contents of her/his bag, cupboard, holiday plans? Or maybe, it has something to do with the ratio of time spent doing vs. planning (including justifying the anticipated doing), looking forward vs. looking back, daydreaming vs. nodding off uncontrollably at unexpected hours of the day. ...
Each day we execute a complex series of ostensibly grown-up actions: feeding/clothing/sheltering ourselves, determining the appropriate mix of work-rest-play, caring for others to the extent of our ability and willingness (admittedly not a function exclusive to adults, nor an inevitable characteristic), and securing the means for so doing. Most of us have, through years of trial-and-error, developed an adequate grasp on the boundaries of civility, propriety. Indeed, we embrace boundaries generally, such as those between work and non-work, friend and acquaintance, realistic and idealistic, plans and dreams. We come - unwittingly, inadvertently, without choice, one way or the other - to deriving self-worth from the perception of others, which is in turn derived through projection, in accordance with the intensity of our need to prove ourselves.
I don't know about y'all, but I seem to be doing okay with the looking-the-part part and getting nowhere with the feelin'-it bit. I have (or have prepared) answers to most of the questions I am likely to be asked on a regular basis [how my job/family/"spare time" is going; how I might pretty-up the work of my superiors at Work; why exactly I think a friend in distress deserves better and will one day, soon, find it; etc.] and none to the ones you'd think, I'd thought too, I'd have figured out by now [too vague to even offer examples].
I end, abruptly as usual, and not all that relevantly, with a housemate's summary of our cohabitation arrangement: four people with [separate and distinct] dysfunctional childhoods trying to be (become?) functional together is in itself cause for celebration. I like to think of the world as little more than an intricate web of households not unlike ours, held together by inexplicable connections which, scrutinised up close, necessarily escape detection but if taken at high enough a level of abstraction, would appear as "snow" on a "blank" TV screen - intriguing and pretty for the first few seconds of the first time you ever see it, but thereafter quite pointless and increasingly nauseating. So it probably doesn't matter either way.
posted by In2MeC at 11:12 pm
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