Suddenly, 'Grown Up!'

All my life, I've had this misconception about adulthood. When you're younger, adults seem so alien. A different class of people as it were; people who seem to know what they're doing!
I half expected a switch in my brain to flick on when I turned 18, that would suddenly make me an adult.

But of course, no such thing happened. 18 years is just an arbitrary temporal achievement that most countries in the world have decided makes a person worthy of driving certain vehicles, looking at naked people online, having the judgement to vote for one's leaders and consuming mind-altering substances.

No such switch flicked on, and life continued, much as it had ever done. I still liked playing video games, I still disliked exams, I still had no idea what I wanted to do in the future and I still watched copious amounts of pornography, much as I had ever done.

Relevant Ice Cream Comic #1

Oh, and college is a strange place. You are technically an adult, but you are still treated mostly like a wild adolescent teenager. There are still abstract constructs and rules to keep you feeling like a just-grew-hair-down-there, clumsy, stupid kid. There is a curfew, there are meal times, there's fucking home-work. Of course, it would be highly impractical to not have these things, it is an educational institution after all, and not a four year long party...
Who am I kidding, it is a four year long party, with intermittent breaks for exams to keep you from going too crazy. But that's not the point of this post.

The point is, you never really get to feel grown up those first four years of 'adulthood'. I went from wanting to just play video games all day and hating exams to wanting to just play video games, hating exams and hanging out with a bunch of awesome people who felt the same way.
That's it! I just went from doing all these things by myself to being in a group of people who did all these things. It was simply an incredible feeling of validation. A feeling of 'Oh fuck yeah, I'm not alone in this shit!'

What being an adult gives you is not sudden wisdom and insight about the realities of the world, what it gives you is an excuse. A ticket, to do all the things you ever did, without feeling the slightest bit guilty or having to worry about authority. It feels like a permission slip that goes - 'By reason of this arbitrary amount of time that has passed since Angad was pulled from the womb, he is now allowed to feel like he can do whatever the fuck he wants. Signed, Society.'

Relevant Ice Cream Comic #2

The operative words being 'feel like'. Since, no, you can't very well do whatever the fuck you want all the time. The real world has this weird thing called 'consequences', and this abstract concept called 'the feelings of others.' They're the constraints that keep you from going super-crazy all the time, like you absolutely want to.

No, I realised you don't grow up with the flick of a switch. No, I did not suddenly know what I was doing!

Actually I'm still not sure how you grow up. All I've realised is, that as the clock keeps ticking, life keeps gradually getting more complex. There comes a point when you feel that maybe it's now time you stopped mooching off your parents' pay cheques, and so, as a consequence, it's time you started to look for employment.

But then you also realise that this employment thing will eat into your busy schedule of playing video games, going out with friends and generally being a lazy slob. And it sucks! It sucks so incredibly bad! Because even though it's been six years since you were legally allowed to view obscene images on the internet, you still don't feel any different.

Relevant Calvin & Hobbes

Sure, now you've got a job, people look to you to make important decisions. Decisions that suddenly have large impacts on either large sums of money or other people's lives; as if suddenly you're not still the kid who used to lie to his parents about how many hours he studies a day. As if suddenly you're not the kid who spends hours killing innocent bystanders on the latest Grand Theft Auto. Oh and you are now judged on your ability to make these decisions, and suddenly, your place and worth in the world is decided by this ability to make these decisions.

It is decidedly surreal how the world works.
I feel no different from the boy who couldn't be trusted to decide the number of hours he watches television in a day at age 16. Yet I am now entrusted to drive a vehicle, run an office, or come to think of it, choose the person I want to have kids with (As if bringing a bunch of more idiots like myself into the world is an awesome idea.)
Oh yes, I've certainly come a long way from giggling like a little kid at a fart joke to giggling like a little kid at a fart joke.
And praised be the gods, I still rarely, if ever, know what I'm doing.

Either the whole concept of adulthood is completely wrong, or I swear to God, I am no adult.

I feel no different.