The Unforeseen Fallibility of Adulthood.

When we are young we look up to the adults around us with a subconscious certainty that they perceive the world in a way that is inherently clearer than our own. Perhaps, we may have pondered, they are privy to some revelation about the way of things that children are not yet aware. Obviously I can only speak for myself, but I imagine many of us grow up with the expectation of discovering a moment of clarity and understanding of all the lingering questions we've accrued as we aged. Of course this one crystallizing moment rarely appears. The reality of the situation is that we reach a predetermined point in our lives and the title of "adult" is in some cases thrust upon us, leaving us no wiser and no more aware of the complexities of living than we were before. If being an adult subverts our lifelong expectations, how then do we define "adulthood" not just for ourselves but as a substantial and integral part of our lives?

It stands to reason that because the aforementioned expectations of becoming an "adult" can obviously vary from individual to individual, that the notion of being adult would manifest differently for everyone. The real question becomes what it is that we inevitably define as the aspects of ourselves that allow us to identify as "grown up"? One can imagine many things that would fit this purview, from the completion of our organizational education to the birth of our first child -- the list is vast but perhaps categorically symmetrical to the taking on of greater responsibility in the structure of civilization. Does this answer the question then? Are we adults in as much of the amount of responsibility we find ourselves tasked? Perhaps partially. While this fulfills to a degree the functional aspect of adulthood; the "omnipotent" nature we perceived as children needs to be reconciled to reality. It's fair to assume that aging and, congruently, being an adult bring with them the facets of greater knowledge in a general sense. Therefore perhaps it is proper to define "adulthood" as the sum total of our lifetime of experiences; be they emotional, practical or otherwise.

Using our 'experiences' to measure the proximity to being grown up is inherently a tricky proposition. Experience is, both transcendentally and practically, by nature a largely subjective thing. The weight, meaning, and amount of any given experience(s) will vary wildly depending on the individual and their unique perceptions. It follows then that adulthood itself is equally as nebulous in terms of explanation. Legally, of course, being an adult is a simple matter of time and/or age, but as a state of being is it not much more intangible? This entire writing thus far has gone to great lengths to elucidate the delusive nature of adulthood, so how then do we ever know that we are indeed adults?

To me the answer is choice. Adulthood is a title we either consciously assign to ourselves, or on some level we resign ourselves to being -- sometimes without even realizing we have. If indeed adulthood is a resultant of a choice, then by nature it is distinctly unlike being a child or adolescent. As children, we are thus by virtue of the fact we are physically small; incapable of taking care of ourselves; dependent. These are predominantly irreversible truths. As adolescents we are defined by our transient states. We are no longer children, yet we have not yet made the choice to be whatever comes next. Being an adult is the perpetual 'whatever comes next' -- a state so personally illusory that it proves hard to define. We are adults for the majority of our lives and yet we are as such for no other reason than we are not immediately anything else. This is precisely the cause of the wealth of misperceptions about adulthood when we are young: a fundamental lack of understanding as to the very nature of what it means to consider oneself "adult". Adulthood then is a personal representation for every individual the understanding and acceptance of their own metaphysical 'experiences' and the resulting choice to accept that evaluation as emblematic of one's entire self.

Being an adult is something that ends up being wholly unlike anything we ever expected growing up. Far from being a state in which we have discovered all the answers to life, it is more a sense of facing the world in acknowledgement of everything we've done before. Many struggle with the idea that they may be adults, and it is perfectly understandable to do so. Choosing to be an adult is not only an intense assessment of self, but the final affirmation of living in answer to oneself exclusively -- a realization that is in no small part daunting and enormous.