<Click here to go to the Main section of Part Two>
I believe it is worth noting here an interesting thing that I found in some questioning as I began kicking these ideas around.
I would pose the question to people around me that had been posed to me: "Are you an adult? What qualifies your distinction?" I asked some folks of all ages, various backgrounds, genders–you get the idea. When I asked folks who were a bit later on in life than I am, the responses were all "Yes," and the qualifications all laced heavily with reflections on experiences circled around family: Marriage, Birth of Children, Divorce, Birth of Grandchildren. The threshold that one must forge through when peering at the prospects of Marriage, Children, and even when one must end a Marriage involves deeply Intimate Knowledge of Self. Most did not articulate it with those particular words, but they all alluded to the necessity of Self-Knowledge for the sake of survival, and to healthily sustain Family.
When the question was posed to my peers (that is, folks around college-age), the answer was also always "Yes." The qualifications cited by those folks were invariably circled around Finances and Personal Responsibility. Personal responsibility for living expenses, leisure activities, and any number of variations on the concept of financial self-sufficience. It was oddly curious that my peers consider financial self-sufficience the primary qualification for Adult distinction. I suppose that any tangible evidence (Driver's License, Tax Forms) that associates an otherwise arbitrary word ("Adult") with one who considers being called a Child a high insult would be clung to tightly. The State considers one an Adult at 18–Liquor Control waits another 3 years. That evidence alone gives college-age folk the idea that they are Adults. These same folk also cited how much more "Adult" they thought they were in comparison with their peers, which was an interesting factor by itself.
So: Associative Labeling and External Perception are the cornerstones of the Adult distinction for these particular folk; however, we know that true Adulthood is not "achieved" through Familiar thresholds of worldly successions, but instead through thresholds of Intimate Self-Knowledge.
The other curious factor in college-age folks' distinctions as Adults was that while explaining how one would qualify his or her self as an Adult, one would give:
1.) a confident "Yes,"
2.) a qualifier involving financial self-sufficience,
3.) several ways in which he or she was in fact Not completely self-sufficient, and still dependent on parental support financially,
4.) a more forceful "Yes."
This pattern tells me that we are not able to have truly honest internal dialogue regarding our own development and Adulthood. If we are still Children–whether you qualify that with financial or developmental reasoning is up to you–why can't we just stand behind that distinction instead? Why do we speak dishonestly with ourselves, and in turn, with our neighbors? If we convince ourselves that we are of Adult distinction using Familiar Knowledge of our Selves, and that Knowledge isn't even Truthful, we are entangling ourselves in mental conditions that will set us further and further away from true Intimate Self-Knowledge–and subsequently, Fluency in Adulthood.
We must be honest. We must be able to Defer our Gratification to unknown ends. And we must be willing to see what lies within when honesty is practiced. We will begin to see ourselves Intimately, and we will be exercising parts of our Minds and our Hearts that are necessary to be Fluent in Adulthood. As we know our selves more and more Intimately, that heightened sense of Accountability to Neighbor I mentioned in the Main section of this Part will come in to play in a big way. Let's get to that next.
THE STONES WILL CRY OUT 