Lately I've been having a bit of an existential crisis. It all started a few years ago when I realized that I was, under the law at least, a grown-ass man. As a grown-ass man I have a certain amount of freedom: I can buy candy whenever I want. As a grown-ass man I have certain commitments and obligations to myself and to society: I'm not supposed to buy candy whenever I want.
I call this the Grownup Problem.
All kids want to grow up faster. Everyone has their own reasons for wanting to be a grownup, but when they get to be a grownup, they usually find that what they wanted doesn't fall under the generally accepted role of "grownup." Kids want to stay up all night; grownups know they shouldn't. Kids want to buy a pool and fill it with Jell-O; grownups know they shouldn't. Kids want to eat pizza and candy all the time; grownups know they shouldn't (usually after the first semester of freshman year, at least).
I understand that I'm not fully grown up yet. I don't have a nine-to-five, I'm not yet approaching my midlife crisis and I haven't yet graduated from the school of hard knocks (let alone college). But I can vote and swear and drive and smoke and buy health insurance and join the military and see R-rated movies and drink and … well pretty much do everything short of run for president and join the AARP.
Under the law I can get a credit card and use it to buy candy. I could buy candy with my credit card until I go bankrupt.
But I can't because I'm a grown-ass man.
Being a grownup sucks.
And it isn't just candy that grownups are constantly denying themselves: Based on no results of a study that I didn't conduct based on no science whatsoever, I have concluded that all adults have something that as a kid they swore they'd do and then never did. Maybe it's eating cake for dinner every day. Maybe it's moving to Disney World. Maybe it's never talking to girls. It doesn't really matter what it is; everyone has some distant dream that is currently being ignored.
If we had time machines, most of us would be liable to be slapped by our eight-year-old selves.
The Grownup Problem is the worst. It's a lot like Schrödinger's cat, and not just in like a "The cat is an adult who is buying candy, the cat is an adult who is not buying candy" kind of way. Bear with me. The Grownup Problem works along the same lines as quantum mechanics: Just as the velocity and position of a particle cannot be measured with unlimited accuracy, the adultitude and buying-candyness of a person cannot both be measured with unlimited accuracy.
We can't know if the adult is buying candy or being an adult without taking a measurement, and taking this measurement inherently affects one of the variables. If asked, no adult will admit to buying candy all the time, and someone buying candy all the time will probably not admit to being an adult ... or whatever.
Camus once said, "How hard, how bitter it is to become a man!" He was probably referring to the inner struggle, the search for meaning in life, the quest for something greater, the trouble of carving out a place in the world, discovering the self and coming to terms with reality, but regardless of what he meant, it's undeniable that becoming a man would be a lot less bitter if more candy were involved.
The Grownup Problem: 1.5 out of 5 stars.
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Mitchell Geller is a junior majoring in psychology and English. He can be reached at Mitchell.Geller@tufts.edu.
