we
there are probably hundreds of reasons for people like me. people who, when they were 10, were always being mistaken for 15. when 14, they asked us what college we went to. we hate being mistaken for our own age. heaven forbid that as a freshman, in either high school or college, i looked it. so we perfected the walk, the talk, and the attitude of those people who were obviously more experienced. it’s mimicry, without looking like you’re trying too hard. and eventually, it becomes you. you study your elders so hard that you become them. even they can’t distinguish their own level of maturity from yours. if left unattended, it can become an ego problem*. they told us we were different, but we knew better.
so why? why do we make life harder on ourselves by trying to stay 10 steps ahead of the maturity game? for starters, it’s way more interesting this way. but i think it’s a sign of the times more than anything else. i really do feel that the world we live in makes us grow up faster. forget hormones in beef and chemicals in produce- take a good hard look at our media and relationship culture (among so many other factors- where’s an anthropologist when i need one?). the information age. TMI- too much information. about everything. whether you look it up yourself, or not. facts, myths, ideas confront you at every turn. there are so many people like me who will google research any topic that crosses our minds. if i really care about it, fine, i’ll go skim some abstracts by researchers, but just the fact that i have access to so much information right in front of my face and that i’m a faster than usual typist means that i know way more than my parents could ever dream of knowing when they were 22. and i’m not even very informed (i extrapolate a lot); my knowledge is spread very thinly over wide expanses, like not enough butter on too much bread. 1/2 the fat, and it shows.
so here i am, scheduled to graduate may, and fulfilling the prophesies of all those sociologists who say that today’s generation lives with their parents longer and can’t hold down a steady job. dear sociologists: at least show us the mercy of explaining to the wide world WHY we are the way we are. because we’re no worse than any previous generations, but our world is, shall we say, shakier, than yours was.
it gets tiring, finding beauty and a future in our world. we’re told that because of decreasing resources and increasing imbalance, that we’re going to see more wars than ever before. it’s easy to wax apocalyptic. cynicism is our shield because there’s almost too much out there to bear. it’s not right, but it’s who we are. we crave stability but can’t commit to it because we fear fallout.
*a good remedy to this problem is to learn to value every age group- younger, older, and your own.