I know others are in similar situations: has anyone else found such a paradigm?
I dunno: have I?
I sorta feel I'm in the opposite situation: I've always looked forward to adulthood avidly, and now that I'm here I love it. To me, it's always meant autonomy and liberty and getting to spend adult quantities of money on toys and playing dress-up. :D Still no mortgage, no car, no kids, no spouse, no college degree (at least for a while yet), finally settled down with a real job after 10 years and absolutely no sense of conflict between this lifestyle and being an Adult. I note it freaks out some of my peers, but apparently that enjoying-shock-value thing wasn't just an adolescent phase for me.
But perhaps I'm more one of those dreaded responsible grownup types? I am both working and in school full time. I'm pursuing an honest-to-gosh career. I've given up most of my free time to do so. I carry all sorts of responsibilities. I kinda keen on having responsibilities. I'm just like that. I've given up my music mostly, the SCA mostly, all sorts of other random spontaneous fun mostly. My life is lived, to a remarkable degree, on a schedule.
So I don't know. To what extent is this about flexibility and changeability to you, and to what extent is this about not just conforming? To what extent is this about responsibility, and to what extent is it about vitality?
One of the paradigms which informs my adulthood is this, though I do not agree with all of it:
IF you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, ' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
Nothing there about not adventuring, or about settling down to a nice little ball-and-chain of consumer-homeowner debt, or one's duty to propagate the species, or conforming for conforming's sake, or about assuming responsibilities for respectibility's sake. It's an older idea of maturity, which says it's more a matter of how you conduct your self, than how you conduct your life.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-05-15 04:22 am (UTC)I know others are in similar situations: has anyone else found such a paradigm?
I dunno: have I?
I sorta feel I'm in the opposite situation: I've always looked forward to adulthood avidly, and now that I'm here I love it. To me, it's always meant autonomy and liberty and getting to spend adult quantities of money on toys and playing dress-up. :D Still no mortgage, no car, no kids, no spouse, no college degree (at least for a while yet), finally settled down with a real job after 10 years and absolutely no sense of conflict between this lifestyle and being an Adult. I note it freaks out some of my peers, but apparently that enjoying-shock-value thing wasn't just an adolescent phase for me.
But perhaps I'm more one of those dreaded responsible grownup types? I am both working and in school full time. I'm pursuing an honest-to-gosh career. I've given up most of my free time to do so. I carry all sorts of responsibilities. I kinda keen on having responsibilities. I'm just like that. I've given up my music mostly, the SCA mostly, all sorts of other random spontaneous fun mostly. My life is lived, to a remarkable degree, on a schedule.
So I don't know. To what extent is this about flexibility and changeability to you, and to what extent is this about not just conforming? To what extent is this about responsibility, and to what extent is it about vitality?
One of the paradigms which informs my adulthood is this, though I do not agree with all of it:Nothing there about not adventuring, or about settling down to a nice little ball-and-chain of consumer-homeowner debt, or one's duty to propagate the species, or conforming for conforming's sake, or about assuming responsibilities for respectibility's sake. It's an older idea of maturity, which says it's more a matter of how you conduct your self, than how you conduct your life.