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I keep wondering lately if anyone is actually an "adult", or if everyone is just faking it because that's what society expects... this leading to a vicious circ

I keep wondering lately if anyone is actually an "adult", or if everyone is just faking it because that's what society expects... this leading to a vicious circle.

sdoering 8y ago
> I keep wondering lately if anyone is actually an "adult", > or if everyone is just faking it [...]. The older I get (am 40 now) the more I tend to believe in the "faking it" part.
hikarudo 8y ago
I wonder the same. Related to this, I also often wonder if there is such a thing as a completely "sane" person. Pick anyone you know well, think of their peculiar habits and sayings, and reflect on whether a "sane" person would be like that.
- mieseratte 8y ago
  Sounds like the mental health version of: > If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him. We're all imperfect beings.
cko 8y ago
I have an older close friend who, after a college reunion, said to me, “Some people stayed the same age they were when they graduated, some people stopped at 40, some people just kept growing.” I’m not 100% sure what he meant by that, but I find that every few months the way I see the world almost completely changes. I’m more accepting, calmer, less inclined to get into heated debates over opinions, when people exhibit “crazy” behavior I actually kind of understand where they’re coming from. I hope that’s growth, and I hope that never stops. But yeah, I’m 32 now, and I’m like damn some people are raising children at this age now. My uncle was in his early 30s when he adopted me and we fought a lot. Now I get it, because at this point in my life I feel like I couldn’t possibly raise a child with wisdom and assertiveness and patience.
- iliaznk 8y ago
  That's what they call wisdom, I think )
- ataturk 8y ago
  I can tell you exactly what it means because I have experienced the same phenomenon--some people just never grow up. The lead on my team is a 40 year old boy and he doesn't even realize it. He is married but has no kids so they go out drinking all the time. Maybe he's an alcoholic, I don't know. But the point is, maturity-wise, he's nowhere near my level and while I'm not the most mature person ever, I am a successful adult. And no, I don't think you have to have kids to become an adult, that isn't the thing. You do have to demonstrate that growth in wisdom and maturity, however. I'll tell you one other unsettling thing. The thing that keeps me awake at night: My career as a software developer is nearly over (I turn 45 this week). It's not that I can't do the work anymore, I can, it's that I've grown out of the work. I also badly just want to do something else with my life and my time. I'm ---><--- this close to figuring it out, but I don't have a completely workable plan yet. There is the small matter of future tuition payments and obnoxiously out-of-control US healthcare costs to somehow manage. I imagine downsizing before age 50, but I am trying to give my family the "good life" that I didn't really have growing up. The family I grew up in "got by." That is all we did. This family, my own family, is thriving. This is my ultimate success in life and yet it is all very fleeting.
- mmsimanga 8y ago
  Perhaps I can add my interpretation. In college, we did a great deal drinking and went to great lengths to find the coolest bar/pub night club. We graduated, got married, had kids and now spend our time fixing our homes. Most of us drink very little or in my case literally stopped drinking. Every once in a while a friend from college will pop into town and ask me to go drinking/partying/looking for the coolest pub. I always marvel at how some of my friends never changed. They still drink like we in college, which was a good 20 years ago in my case.
  - mercer 8y ago
    While there are many factors that play a role in 'growing up', I do think you make a valuable point in highlighting drinking as a salient factor. Looking at my peers (early- to mid-thirties), drinking habits seem to correlate more than even 'big' things like marrying or having kids.
hux_ 8y ago
Adults in my book are those you automatically/instinctively turn to when life throws you in the deep sea. It's not really about age but what they have gone through in life. They are the folk who have not just survived the deep sea, but come out the other side with minimum damage. These people exist just like people who have summited mountains exist. You can't fake that shit. And you'll automatically know them when you see them.
- LeifCarrotson 8y ago
  Summiting mountains is easy. Adult life is hard.
  - pdimitar 8y ago
    Indeed, I always found summitting mountains as some kind of a hubris activity. I am like "okay, that's really interesting but that's ONE achievement requiring moderate amounts of effort and one-time investment so don't count me very impressed". I mean, I am not judging people for doing it. Not at all. It's a good way to get to know oneself better! Being an adult however is a battle you have every day.
VLM 8y ago
One theory is psychological adulthood is having individual agency, which babies and children clearly physically cannot have, and at some point as people age into competency they either get it and become adult, fake it and generally do relatively poorly, or never bother obtaining it and do very poorly. (edited to point out the article tip toes around this without ever stating or summarizing this) For any given task X that needs doing, you can either do it because it needs doing, only do it when tightly supervised, or not bother someone else will take care of it. Where X could be anything, go to the gym, raise children, a job or business, politics, all manner of things.
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  That's the very base definition. The next step is knowing your limits, where you are competent, where you could be competent, are expected to be and what those things are worth. No amount of drive alone (which is what you're talking about) will fix it.
cafard 8y ago
On about the first page of Malraux's Anti-Memoirs he writes of asking a priest what he had learned from hearing all those thousands of confessions. The priest said, a) in general, there are no grownups; b) people are sadder than they appear.
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  Actually point B only is relevant for people who confess their sins in church... (A self selecting group. It takes a small degree of masochism to practice religion strictly; or some really sin where they want to confess.) I bet you'd get a similar answer from psychologists mostly because well adjusted people tend to not visit them. Add a smidgen of bias in remembering and setting affecting the confessions, here's your full picture.
  - ultraluminous 8y ago
    I bet you'd get a similar answer from psychologists mostly because well adjusted people tend to not visit them. You're also making a selection bias, assuming people that see a psychologist are not well adjusted. It's equally possible that only well adjusted people seek psychological consult, while others are sublimating their problems. I don't necessarily agree with that conclusion either, but I think it's worth pointing out. Especially when discussing emotional maturity.
modbait 8y ago
There is. When you witness and are the victim of profound bullshit, betrayal, and evil, it changes you. That can happen when you're "young", but it usually takes a while to accumulate. (Too soon?)

I keep wondering lately if anyone is actually an "adult", or if everyone is just faking it because that's what society expects... this leading to a vicious circle.

sdoering 8y ago

> I keep wondering lately if anyone is actually an "adult", > or if everyone is just faking it [...]. The older I get (am 40 now) the more I tend to believe in the "faking it" part.

hikarudo 8y ago

I wonder the same. Related to this, I also often wonder if there is such a thing as a completely "sane" person. Pick anyone you know well, think of their peculiar habits and sayings, and reflect on whether a "sane" person would be like that.

mieseratte 8y ago
Sounds like the mental health version of: > If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him. We're all imperfect beings.

cko 8y ago

I have an older close friend who, after a college reunion, said to me, “Some people stayed the same age they were when they graduated, some people stopped at 40, some people just kept growing.” I’m not 100% sure what he meant by that, but I find that every few months the way I see the world almost completely changes. I’m more accepting, calmer, less inclined to get into heated debates over opinions, when people exhibit “crazy” behavior I actually kind of understand where they’re coming from. I hope that’s growth, and I hope that never stops. But yeah, I’m 32 now, and I’m like damn some people are raising children at this age now. My uncle was in his early 30s when he adopted me and we fought a lot. Now I get it, because at this point in my life I feel like I couldn’t possibly raise a child with wisdom and assertiveness and patience.

iliaznk 8y ago
That's what they call wisdom, I think )
ataturk 8y ago
I can tell you exactly what it means because I have experienced the same phenomenon--some people just never grow up. The lead on my team is a 40 year old boy and he doesn't even realize it. He is married but has no kids so they go out drinking all the time. Maybe he's an alcoholic, I don't know. But the point is, maturity-wise, he's nowhere near my level and while I'm not the most mature person ever, I am a successful adult. And no, I don't think you have to have kids to become an adult, that isn't the thing. You do have to demonstrate that growth in wisdom and maturity, however. I'll tell you one other unsettling thing. The thing that keeps me awake at night: My career as a software developer is nearly over (I turn 45 this week). It's not that I can't do the work anymore, I can, it's that I've grown out of the work. I also badly just want to do something else with my life and my time. I'm ---><--- this close to figuring it out, but I don't have a completely workable plan yet. There is the small matter of future tuition payments and obnoxiously out-of-control US healthcare costs to somehow manage. I imagine downsizing before age 50, but I am trying to give my family the "good life" that I didn't really have growing up. The family I grew up in "got by." That is all we did. This family, my own family, is thriving. This is my ultimate success in life and yet it is all very fleeting.
mmsimanga 8y ago
Perhaps I can add my interpretation. In college, we did a great deal drinking and went to great lengths to find the coolest bar/pub night club. We graduated, got married, had kids and now spend our time fixing our homes. Most of us drink very little or in my case literally stopped drinking. Every once in a while a friend from college will pop into town and ask me to go drinking/partying/looking for the coolest pub. I always marvel at how some of my friends never changed. They still drink like we in college, which was a good 20 years ago in my case.
- mercer 8y ago
  While there are many factors that play a role in 'growing up', I do think you make a valuable point in highlighting drinking as a salient factor. Looking at my peers (early- to mid-thirties), drinking habits seem to correlate more than even 'big' things like marrying or having kids.

hux_ 8y ago

Adults in my book are those you automatically/instinctively turn to when life throws you in the deep sea. It's not really about age but what they have gone through in life. They are the folk who have not just survived the deep sea, but come out the other side with minimum damage. These people exist just like people who have summited mountains exist. You can't fake that shit. And you'll automatically know them when you see them.

LeifCarrotson 8y ago
Summiting mountains is easy. Adult life is hard.
- pdimitar 8y ago
  Indeed, I always found summitting mountains as some kind of a hubris activity. I am like "okay, that's really interesting but that's ONE achievement requiring moderate amounts of effort and one-time investment so don't count me very impressed". I mean, I am not judging people for doing it. Not at all. It's a good way to get to know oneself better! Being an adult however is a battle you have every day.

VLM 8y ago

One theory is psychological adulthood is having individual agency, which babies and children clearly physically cannot have, and at some point as people age into competency they either get it and become adult, fake it and generally do relatively poorly, or never bother obtaining it and do very poorly. (edited to point out the article tip toes around this without ever stating or summarizing this) For any given task X that needs doing, you can either do it because it needs doing, only do it when tightly supervised, or not bother someone else will take care of it. Where X could be anything, go to the gym, raise children, a job or business, politics, all manner of things.

AstralStorm 8y ago
That's the very base definition. The next step is knowing your limits, where you are competent, where you could be competent, are expected to be and what those things are worth. No amount of drive alone (which is what you're talking about) will fix it.

cafard 8y ago

On about the first page of Malraux's Anti-Memoirs he writes of asking a priest what he had learned from hearing all those thousands of confessions. The priest said, a) in general, there are no grownups; b) people are sadder than they appear.

AstralStorm 8y ago
Actually point B only is relevant for people who confess their sins in church... (A self selecting group. It takes a small degree of masochism to practice religion strictly; or some really sin where they want to confess.) I bet you'd get a similar answer from psychologists mostly because well adjusted people tend to not visit them. Add a smidgen of bias in remembering and setting affecting the confessions, here's your full picture.
- ultraluminous 8y ago
  I bet you'd get a similar answer from psychologists mostly because well adjusted people tend to not visit them. You're also making a selection bias, assuming people that see a psychologist are not well adjusted. It's equally possible that only well adjusted people seek psychological consult, while others are sublimating their problems. I don't necessarily agree with that conclusion either, but I think it's worth pointing out. Especially when discussing emotional maturity.

modbait 8y ago

There is. When you witness and are the victim of profound bullshit, betrayal, and evil, it changes you. That can happen when you're "young", but it usually takes a while to accumulate. (Too soon?)