Growing older is inevitable. We can’t escape time’s relentless arrow.
Becoming dull, joyless and terminally serious, however, is entirely optional.
Somewhere along the journey into adulthood society quietly slips us a secret rulebook explaining which activities are considered acceptable and which are not. Which hobbies are “appropriate” and which enthusiasms should probably be packed away in the loft next to your old Action Men and abandoned dreams.
Apparently the rules are something like this:
- Assembling obscure collections = eccentric
- Getting excited about games or toys = immature
- Watching cartoons as an adult = deeply concerning
- Discussing Discworld or Hitchhiker’s Guide lore at length = suspicious
I appear to have misplaced my copy of the rulebook.
But really… what is an adult?
As children we assume adults understand life. We imagine they possess confidence, competence and secret knowledge unavailable to younger minds. Adults seem unfazed by everything. They understand taxes voluntarily. They know how insurance works. They probably even enjoy shopping for furniture in IKEA.
You assume that one day a hidden switch in your brain will flip from Child Mode to Fully Operational Adult™ and suddenly the mysteries of existence will reveal themselves.
Except that day never comes.
Instead there’s just a gradual realisation that you’re no longer young. One day you’re racing down hills on a bicycle pretending to be a fighter pilot and the next you’re comparing broadband tariffs and wondering why your knee sounds like a creaky floorboard.
Internally though?
You still feel remarkably similar.
You still have the same interests, fears, fascinations, anxieties and bizarre little enthusiasms. There’s a strange disconnect between your physical age and your internal self-image. In your head you’re still basically you, just with slightly more back pain and stronger opinions about kitchen appliances.
Perhaps more worryingly, you eventually realise you’re now expected to be the responsible adult.
You may even have children of your own who look up at you with the same wide-eyed certainty you once directed at your parents. They assume you know what you’re doing.
Meanwhile internally you’re thinking:
“I’m improvising wildly and hoping nobody notices here Kid!.”
I still occasionally feel like three children in a trench coat trying very hard to pretend they understand mortgages.
Although we don’t change much internally, society expects us to change externally. We’re expected to become relentlessly sensible. Calm. Productive. Emotionally stable. Proper grown-ups.
Enthusiasm becomes embarrassing.
Silliness becomes socially risky.
Wonder becomes suspicious.
Stoic calm and maturity becomes the norm.
Personally, I think locking away curiosity, humour and joy in the name of adulthood does nobody any favours.
Let’s talk about collections for a moment.
You’re at a dinner party and someone asks what you do for fun.
You explain that you collect slide rules, Rubik’s Cubes, fossils, cravats and old books.
At this point you can actually watch them mentally powering down.
You see the unspoken question slowly forming behind their eyes:
“…why?”
What they often don’t see is the curiosity behind it. The tactile pleasure. The fascination. The sense of continuity. The joy of holding strange little fragments of human creativity and history in your hands.
To them it’s clutter.
To you it’s wonder.
Some people collect watches, paintings, cars or increasingly expensive kitchen gadgets. Depending on your social circle they may even collect spouses.
But somewhere along the line adulthood collectively decided that joy should justify itself economically.
I respectfully disagree.
In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Mike Teevee complains that everything in the titular factory is pointless.
Charlie replies:
“Candy doesn’t have to have a point. That’s why it’s candy.”
Exactly.
Joy should exist for joy’s sake.
Not everything meaningful has to be monetised, optimised or transformed into a side hustle for LinkedIn.
As children our worries were relatively small. Did we have enough pocket money for sweets? Did we finish our homework? Would our Tamagotchi survive the weekend?
Adulthood brings heavier concerns.
Work. Money. Relationships. Responsibilities. Health. Anxiety. Stress.
Your body also starts developing what can only be described as “design quirks”.
Your eyesight deteriorates. Your waistline expands despite eating approximately the same foods you survived on perfectly well at twenty. Your hair either turns grey, disappears entirely or relocates mysteriously to your ears.
And through all of this you’re still expected to project the calm, controlled demeanour of Proper Adulthood.
But humour and joy are forms of resilience.
They’re coping mechanisms that provide perspective on what actually matters.
That isn’t avoidance.
Sometimes humour is how humans carry heavy things without collapsing under the weight.
There is, however, an important distinction between being childish and being childlike.
Childishness is selfishness, irresponsibility and emotional immaturity.
Childlikeness is curiosity, imagination, enthusiasm, creativity, playfulness and wonder.
Unfortunately society confuses the two constantly.
Push back against this whenever possible.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with remaining curious about the world.
At fifty-six years of age I’ve realised a few things:
- Impressing everyone is impossible.
- Fitting in is seriously overrated.
- Most social rules were invented by people no wiser than you.
- Life is finite and you only get one go at it.
Once you realise this, something rather liberating happens.
You give yourself permission to enjoy things openly.
To dress oddly if it makes you happy.
To collect weird objects, even if they are Spores, Moulds and Fungus. (Thanks Egon.)
To laugh more.
To stop pretending.
To become more authentically yourself.
So yes, I’m getting older.
My knees occasionally produce noises worthy of a haunted mansion and I now make involuntary sound effects whenever standing up from a chair.
But I still love puzzles.
I still laugh at terrible jokes.
I still make even worse puns.
I still derive immense joy from simple things.
I can still freewheel down a hill on a bicycle grinning like an idiot.
And I may occasionally become unreasonably excited upon discovering an old bookshop or toyshop.
Does that mean I never fully grew up?
I can probably live with that.
Quite happily, in fact.