On adulthood and authority

Dear diary,

What is the age of adulthood? And what does it mean to be an adult? Is it better to be an adult or a child?

I’ve heard children say “I can’t wait till I grow up.” They’re impatient to lose their youth: they really want to become adults.

And then all the adults I know say “I miss my childhood” and they speak of being a child as “the good old days”.

Since everyone’s different, I assume that the change into adulthood won’t occur at exactly the same age for each individual. But can we even generalize & choose a number that’s close: an approximation that works for all? I mean, are people SO different that some are adults by the age of twenty-three, whereas others only barely reach adulthood when they hit eighty-seven?

Did anyone ever think to use puberty as the threshold of adulthood? That would treat anyone post-pubescent as an adult. — And is the number thirteen held as important because that’s the average age when puberty starts in humans? — I ask because I really don’t know.

(& for the record, I hate that term puberty. What a gross, horrible word.)

OK, I just now researched it, & the factoid that the Truth Machine spat back was that the age is even earlier, like eight or nine. — But maybe that’s just when the process starts, and thirteen is when most humans have completed their metamorphosis.

Or perhaps thirteen is notable solely from a linguistic perspective: because the number twelve precedes it, thus it’s the first teen figure.

I’m just pondering how our culture deems certain ages important in regard to the notion of maturity.

Eighteen is another key number. Just as growth rates differ between individuals, the laws differ between states and countries; but when I turned eighteen, the law of my land, the State of Minnesota, decreed that I could legally now smoke cigarettes and purchase pornography. And become a high-stakes gambler.

Also sixteen is a milestone, cuz it’s sweet: cuz that’s the age when you’re allowed to drive a motorized vehicle (if you pass all the tests, which I did not).

And then twenty-one is the age when you can consume the booze.

I don’t recall how old one must be to wield a firearm or to enter holy matrimony, but the cleverest adults combine both these latter ideas into a single sacrament known as a “shotgun wedding”.

Ah, & then there’s the age at which one is legally eligible to serve in the military. Or to be be conscripted into serving the Land of the Free. Here’s some text that I copied from “USA dot Gov” (not to be confused with “Roy G. Biv”):

Almost all men age 18-25 who are U.S. citizens or are immigrants living in the U.S. are required to be registered with Selective Service.

Working Hypothesis

Taking all the above into consideration, I declare THIRTY to be the age at which every human becomes an adult. That seems fair to me. — And I’m the World King, so my judgment is binding.

Alright, so everyone under thirty is only a child; and anyone over thirty has reached adulthood.

And the whole year of life that takes place once a person turns thirty shall be spent inside a cocoon. Now here’s my beef:

BRYAN’S BEEF
w/ Adulthood & Authority

When I was a child, all the adults told me: “Shut up & wait your turn to be important — only adults matter, and you’re just a child — you need to serve the Adult Class until you become a Real Man.”

So eventually I broke out of my childhood’s cocoon proudly sporting fresh wrinkles, with my hair now grayer than the pillar of smoke on Mount Sinai: I stepped into adult life with a smirk on my newly wizened visage, ready to take the world by the tail... Yet NOW the authorities yelled me a counter-message:

“Shut up & labor hard to pay your way. Only children matter, and you have no kids of your own, so you might as well be dead: you’re a selfish blank for neglecting to help the next generation conform. For the children are the future, but you’re just an overripe fruit. Drain and discard thyself, ASAP.”

To review:

When I was a child, I was told to wait on the sidelines of life until I became a stinking adult; then, as an adult, I was told to wait on life’s sidelines because the children must work the next shift.

SOLUTION

So this is why I became the King of the World; cuz when you’re the King, then you’re the most important person alive, even in infancy. And when you grow old, they still treat you with respect! Nobody makes you wait on the sidelines — even if you can’t get up to play, they just bring the whole game straight to you — field, players & all...

Now King David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat.

Wherefore his servants said unto him, “Let there be sought for my lord the King a young virgin: and let her stand before the King, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the King may get heat.”

So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of the country, and brought her to the King.

And the damsel was very fair, and cherished the King, and ministered to him... (1st Kings 1:1-4)

I cite this passage as an example of an extreme case; for I haven’t quite reached that level yet: I’m not so old that I “get no heat”. Plus I’m a World King whereas David was only the King of one or two countries.

How I chose to pursue such an envious profession:

If you look closely at my earlier complaint — the one where I relay the prohibitive order that I was given both in childhood AND adulthood — you might notice that, above & beyond those rival classes of “Children” or “Adults”, there’s this mysterious other class that is called “Authority”:

For adults wield power over children, which is why the Adult Class delivered the “stand down” speech to my child form; but then a similar speech was delivered to my adult form by a group known as THE AUTHORITIES. — Just as adults trump children, so do these authorities trump adults.

I therefore found myself attracted to this concept; and I wanted to seize it and clinch it to my chest and become one with it. So I began to study authority, and I discovered higher and higher forms of it, until I reached the apex:

(Success!)

I soon learned that even authorities have authorities; & the authority OF the authorities (in other words, the highest authority, over which no other being has power, not even time or fate; no, not destiny, doom, or even God himself) is the Universal Emperor. So that’s the main reason I chose to get crowned the World King (another name for that same position). Now, instead of the authorities commanding me, I myself command all authorities. And I rule with an iron fist.

SWORN TESTIMONY
offered as proof of the above claim

So God comes before me & sez: “Have compassion on thy populace, I beg thee.”

& I say “NO!” & bonk him down like Whac-A-Mole with my iron fist.

Soon God returns and sez: “Excuse me, Your Majesty…”

But I interrupt and say: “Hey, didn’t I just bonk you down with my iron fist? How’d you get back aboveground so quick?”

And God sez: “I spent some time going to and fro in the earth, and from crawling up and down in it. Then I found an opening in the topsoil, which led to an entryway into your palace, so I came here to report my findings unto you.”

So I say: “Alright, make it quick. What’d you find?”

& God sez:

“Same thing I was saying before. The only way you maintain your royalty, Sir Bryan of Eagan, is by the force of your iron fist. But IF you showed compassion toward your populace by meeting their needs, AND gave them the right to speak their mind freely, THEN they’d all admit that they hate your guts. So you’re not truly the ‘top dog’ in a meritocracy, as you believe — no: you’re just the only brute who’s barbaric enough to use la force to keep your place as King of Kings. Thus all that praise you receive is total hogwash. It’s all feigned, because the people are afraid.”

So I shake my head at God & say one word: “Wrong.” Then I bonk him again with my fist. This time he stays underground.

Smart Folks Think Twice

But God’s speech sticks in my craw. I keep mulling over what he said. Altho I pretended I wasn’t listening, I was actually listening carefully: his words were branding themselves on my brain. Now I’m beginning to obsess over them, so I decide to survey my kingdom, which is the Whole Globe, to see if God’s theory checks out.

First I stroll to the public square & confront the song of my citizens who are gathered there singing praises to me:

“Stop!” I shout. “Cut your racket. I wanna ask you something.”

The vast choir falls silent.

“O ye fools,” I shout, “I come here to address you this day, to learn the truth about your love for me. I want to know: Do you worship me from your hearts; or are you just pretending to idolize me because you’re scared of my giant fist, which will crush you on a whim?”

The people’s faces are uniformly perplexed — they seem not to have grasped what I said; either that or they do not know how to answer my question.

Therefore I smash them all with my fist (I don’t have time for this nonsense; asking the populace its opinion — who cares what the populace thinks! — I’m the one with all the authority):

I begin at the right side of my peripheral vision, and repeatedly bash my iron fist till I’ve hit everything in sight, all the way over to the far left: I smash the whole landscape. Not a soul is left standing from the multitudes, except my armed guardians.

REFLECTIONS
on a job well done

And it was not only God himself but other employees like jesters and prophets who also warned me, in the past, that if I tried to live in my protected bubble alone with just my small gang of loyal volunteers — for I had built a pleasure-dome back in the ’60s, when things started heating up, and it was finished by ’77 — that I (they claimed) would find that I needed other people after all. But they were mistaken: for my little gang is completely adequate for my preferred lifestyle. I don’t need more beautiful damsels than my eyes can take in (plus I’m nearsighted, so I can only see a few meters away); & when there’s no populace to threaten me, it significantly reduces the need for armed guardians: so I was even able to bash away a percentage of my military, with my iron fist; and I suffered no loss. I was actually happier this way. (All those guns made me nervous.)

But, as I said, I’m not only the Ruler of this territory that I flattened just now: I’m the full Global Autarch — the King of the World. So there were many other domains, realms & dimensions to visit before I was able to rid myself of my problem.

Luckily, I’m a hard worker — that’s how I got to be the World King — so I did what I had to do, and I got the job done.

After that, we had a cookout: a barbecue. And we grilled a bunch of food, and turned on the radio. I lived the rest of my life in ease & luxury, constantly partying with my Gang of Loyals. And if any Non-loyal Unknowns ever surfaced, who I apparently missed during the universal purification, then my guys would just tackle the rubes & hold them down while I went & retrieved my iron fist. (I kept the thing on a pedestal in my bedroom, now that all threats were mostly extinguished. For we won the War on Terror. — And you should see my bed: it’s huge and soft, and it has a canopy and a mosquito net.)

The Afterparty

Then, at long last, I gave up the ghost. It was a painless, natural death. During my final days I was surrounded at all hours by loyal members of my gang. And they kept me on opium — just the right dosage — until I expired one evening in my sleep.

Immediately I went to heaven: I’m writing this from the post-life, to show that you jesters & prophets lost your bets! And the LORD God owes me fifty caesars: for I was not unhappy when alive; and I am not unhappy now that I’m dead.

As I just explained, I went straight to heaven — NOT hell, as you all predicted incorrectly. And it turns out that heaven (at least for me) is a seamless mixture of what the Christians described when I was a child, combined with what, as a young adult, my Muslim co-workers at the eyeglass factory taught me to expect from paradise:

Everything’s perfect here — it’s not much different than my former life on earth. I mean, it is different: there’s definitely a clarity and a heightened pleasure about everything here — the air’s cleaner, the water tastes better, the maidservants are prettier — but it’s an improvement in the degree rather than the type of excellence. In other words, there’s nothing about heaven that is confusing to one’s mind, upon first arriving: You don’t see weirdly shaped vehicles flying around, which your eyes have trouble deciphering because you’re only accustomed to looking at camels and motor-cars. No, everything in the afterlife is a ramped-up continuation of the Good Life that you lived prior to this.

And death isn’t troublesome at all. Others make it look hard, but it’s really no more difficult than a hiccup. It’s like wriggling under a fence to get into someone else’s backyard. And there’s free apples on the ground, and you can toss them to swine.

The swine are really friendly here, by the way: they’re even better than cats. – Cats were man’s best friend on earth; but pigs play that role in heaven. – And there are snakes here who can whisper sooths to you. But they’re not like that snake from the Bible Book of Genesis — NO: these snakes don’t leak classified info & get you in trouble; they’re true to the WORLD KING (that’s me) and they would never become whistle-blowers for the people.

And yes, God is here too, as expected; but people don’t sit around praising him all day, singing the ‘holy-holy’ song. Instead, God is a really friendly and helpful part of the scenery. He’s like a tour guide or something. But much nicer. I like him now. Back on earth, he got on my nerves. But here I find us engaged in pleasant chats — I even lose myself in our discussions, they’re so quaint: that’s why I’m often tardy for meetings! — But folks never get too angry here, even tho there is the capacity for disappointment. (I’m the CEO of a growing company that has shareholders meetings twice quarterly; that might sound like a lot, but pretty much everyone’s fun to talk to — so it’s not as awful as the meetings are on earth: nobody ever loses their cool — and we always award ourselves bonuses.)

As for Jesus, yes, I’ve heard of him… I’m not sure exactly where he resides; but I think he’s here — I think I’ve seen him preaching in the park. He’s not any nuisance, to me. I have no problem with any man who minds his own business. I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting him yet, but maybe we can work out a deal if we ever cross paths. I hear he’s fairly popular.

My daily schedule goes something like this (It’s heaven, so you don’t need to pencil down plans on a calendar, plus there’s no firm rules; but one’s actions do tend to settle into habits, as one finds what one enjoys & then sticks to it):

I wake in a bower and gently untangle myself from the limbs of my sleep-mates. Then I attend a series of board meetings for all the companies that I own shares in. After that, I walk a path that circles clockwise around the villages in East Paradise, to collect my rents. (Tho I have ample clerks and assistants, I prefer to do this myself: it’s such a pleasant procedure — plus I’m forever in perfect health; and simply walking around here feels every bit as blissful as making love did, back on earth.) I proceed from abode to abode, gathering checks from each of the occupants. They always pay (on time!) and they’re always happy about it. They smile & hand me their envelope; then I tip my hat & exclaim, “Bless your heart, Mary X.” (She’s one of the recent widows.) Everything always works out fine, in heaven.

As for fauna, there are coyotes here, and mountain lions, and elks; as well as the standard crows and squirrels. But none of them bother us much. Also I saw a giant squid once, but it was at the top of the hill, looking down on our village — so apparently they can breathe the air here too. And of course there are plenty of deer, but no deer-ticks. There’s no parasites of any kind — all those creatures went to hell. Also there’s polo ponies everywhere, roaming free and wild.

I highly recommend the rice here; it’s really tasty. And altho there’s no alcohol, the atmosphere itself has a relaxing effect, as do the natural elements: so, even if you just drink the sparkling liquid from the green stream that meanders thru the marketplace, you constantly feel a perfect buzz: it’s just like you’re floating.

It’s a great place to live — I know, this almost sounds jokey; but it’s truly the best community, here in heaven. Most of the residents wear genuine leather jackets. Everyone looks attractive. There’s no threat of violence or crime. It’s just amazing how satisfying life can be when you eliminate all the evil folk.

Sometime next week I’m thinking of phoning up the old gang and seeing if they wanna join me on an adventure — I’d like to go out & search for the rumored City of Gold. It should be findable, this time. I already bought a ship from an old lady down the block, and I have supplies to last us twenty years or more.