It usually comes without warning. Often enough I’m browsing and something pops into my feed that I wouldn’t normally see. A social justice warrior makes a seemingly obvious statement about complicity, then a friend goes to like it. Amens abound. Circular statements about racists saying racist shit being racist shits pile up. Then, as I’m literally moved by my destructive morality to do, I start asking questions.
More and more I feel like I’m part of a special sect of people born to defend an ancient truth that few will ever be find themselves capable of handling the power. It goes by many names, but as I can’t help but to keep getting older, the more it just seems like it’s “being an adult.” I’m well aware that it’s presumed adults who’ve championed every last horrifying and deadly unnatural tragedy that has ever befallen the planet. And yet, I still think the reason that there’s anyone here at all is the sore, hunched, and punctured backs of the adults insisting on a direction.
There’s an idea that there’s “many kinds of intelligences.” It’s used as a way to help bolster the esteem and merit of different skill sets and interests so we can all occupy a plain of mutual respect and acceptance. It’s an extremely flawed idea, but it’s gained traction and many people see it as a more legitimate stance to hide behind to avoid their inadequacy. I think it’s a perfect analogy for how posturing “adults” consider themselves in relation to one another.
“Don’t tell me how to raise my kids, my daddy beat me, I can beat them.” “What do you know with your fancy degree? Science isn’t perfect!” “He can’t read or write to save his life, but he can take apart a car and put it back together in record time.” So it goes, you’re just as good as rearing children as your potentially abusive parents, by your only standard, you’re good. Years spent in service to a craft is reduced to a throwaway comment regarding the tentative nature of reality. The ability to repeat similar patterns and recognize shapes is a fine substitute for literacy.
Presumed adults get into the habit of making definitive statements. “Racism is bad and we need to end all racism!” Who could argue? More to the point, I’ve given myself license to react and emote and even destroy if you dare. That’s what I really wanted to do anyway. Before I cared about racism, I needed an outlet and an excuse. Are you volunteering?
And of course because I’m, whatever, too often for my spirit, I do. I do it for the same reason I imagine most responsible adults would step in to prevent a group of kids from starting a fire in the wrong place. Maybe the adult is older, maybe the kids are rougher teenagers. Is the guy trying to get his ass kicked, or is he compelled by his experience with consequences and responsibility to say something? Has he seen enough terrible fires that whatever chance he’s taking will always be less dramatic than the fallout of what’s been set up by the teenagers? Yes.
I don’t go into conversations attempting to fight like a firefighter who knows there’s something to put out and people and animals to save. Conversations are not fire no matter how often you insist they are. They can be dangerous, are often precarious, and rarely are productive. My sense and experience says if you’re to have any hope, start by getting specific. Start identifying. Maybe wait at least 5 responses before you tell me to go fuck myself or adorn me with fancy medals with every demeaning label you’ve ever heard. I’m suggesting the fire is on the head of a match we can use to illuminate instead of drop into a bucket of gasoline.
I encourage you to explore this for yourself. You will never feel like me more than if you go somewhere that something “serious” is being discussed and start asking questions. Sincere questions. Polite questions. Questions even slightly off-topic but in a line can be swung back around. The very idea that there’d be any question served to the Definitive Adult is heresy and punishable by death. Your words will shrivel beneath their insults, if not just get outright deleted. Your character, as if you ever had any, will be etched in stone as the final sentiment of whoever manages to get in the last word.
You’d think as a psychology major I’d have a better understanding of it. You’d think I’d have some nice research papers and experiments that really round out what is actually meant by denial and its implications. You’d think my reading of emotionally immature parents and abusive dependent couples would make the interactions I have so often sit very well within an explanatory context that allows me to forgo writing a few pages after every incident. But it’s never enough. There’s a missing piece I’m calling “adulthood” that, dumb or smart, a very small group of people allow themselves. My persistent worry is that there’s no longer enough of them, or the environments that breed them, to keep the general business of living ship afloat.
