Becoming an adult

This one goes out to Josh, because he asks me this from time to time.

So, occasionally a friend of mine asks me what made me realize that I was an adult. My first answer, back when he asked, was socks. I bought my own socks, and that's when I realized, 'Wow, I'm an adult'. Because I was burning my disposable income on a quality of life item like socks instead of something strictly entertainment purposes. I'll admit It was a goofy answer and only half-serious, but it remained my answer almost six months later when he asked me again so I suppose it stuck.

But I had a thought on the way home today while I was mulling over a few songs I'd been listening to. There's one song in particular - "Car Radio" by Twenty One Pilots - that really caught my attention. In the song the singer has had his car radio stolen and he's stuck driving with only himself for company, no music to distract him from his own life. His thoughts run away with him, and he wants to replace it just so he can stop being forced to think about his life on every car ride.

I'm going to be brutally honest right now - no matter how put together everyone appears to be on the outside, we're all just a genuine invitation away from a complete stranger away from bursting out with every fear and misgiving we're dealing with in our lives. Some people do it in journals, some people do it in drunken conversations, some people do it on blogs using thinly veiled allusions, but we all want to get it out.

That brings me back to our protagonist, the radioless man. He's locked away inside the car he's driving, nothing to distract him from the dissatisfaction of his lot, and he's wrecked by it. He talks about his pride being on his sleeve, the dreams (his own) he's killed and says 'I could just pull the steering wheel.'

The french have an idiom for this - "L'appel du vide" or the call of the void. 'I could just pull this steering wheel'. Terrifying, horrifying even.

Back to being an adult.

We're all scared, we don't really know what to do. This is our lot, of course. For the last few years I've always thought I knew how everything worked. I was under the impression I had it all figured out, if I was just a bit better at translating the runaway train of thought and transferring it to paper I could quantify the words that would make it okay for everyone.

I know that I was wrong. I couldn't write it then and I can't write it now. It's certainly not socks. Truly, I may only have just become an adult on this 'car ride' myself.

Because the moment I realized I was an adult was the moment I accepted that I would never know what it meant to be an adult, that I'd always be scared of something. That finally having everything together was always just out of reach. That no matter how much we think we know, there's still something more to be learned.

But hell, what do I know?

Knowledge and Understanding

There's an old rather depressing remark that comes out whenever someone is lamenting their lot in life and it usually goes "It never gets any easier". It is said in many ways, tasted in many flavors, and pokes an already sore nerve.

Oddly (or not so oddly, one supposes), it turns out that as you get older you really understand it. When you're a child and you are tired of going to school, it never gets any easier. When you are an adult getting your first job and working 20 hours a week, it never gets any easier. When you go to college and have more exams on tougher classes, it never gets any easier. When you work your 40 hour weeks, do your own laundry, cook your own food, and pay your own bills it never gets easier.

It's funny how this phrase - so simple, so effectual, can be lost on us at every step of the way, every moment, such that it may always be a hindrance to us on reminder. We know it, we've lived it, our lives never become less complex. It is only in the barest moments of self-reflection does the realization come to us, and then is gone until we complain beside a witty friend.

There is a saying in Buddhism, "Don't mistake the finger pointing at the moon for the moon." It is a fairly simple idea and explains the flaw in our spoken language. We tell each other, explain to one-another, the wisdom we have gleaned and expect transformation. People will always say that things never get easier because it is simple to say it. But those words are not enlightenment, we have done nothing more then point at the moon while the other person looks to our finger.

This is also the logic behind meditating on koans and focusing on experiencing life in the moment. We are trying to teach ourselves to see the moon rather then watching for the fingers that point to it. We want to be a part of the reality of things rather then the representations that are before us.

So when you are told something, or something is explained to you, think on it and ponder the thing that is being spoken of instead of the words that are being used to convey it. Listen mindfully to those ideas, and understand them. Knowledge is simple, understanding is complex.