a late-night musing on adulthood

my colonial-esque bedroom/study where I dork out

This past week I’ve been doing lots of thinking about adulthood as I’ve been looking for studio apartments. I’ve never lived alone, have always preferred to live in community: Lehman House, Claypole House, Park Avenue, all my residences since college have been marked by communal living. Now people are getting married, moving in with one another, and basically getting out of the whole “communal living” thing, and I’ve found my hand forced. It came all of a sudden last Sunday, the realization—as if I were being hit upside the head with a hammer—that I’m an adult. It’s weird to write it, even to admit it: “Of course I’m an adult.” But I’ve still identified myself as a “young adult” rather than as an “adult,” but when college students look like little kids to you, well, that may be a sign that the days of being a “young adult” are over. Such thinking spurred even more thoughts, and a few nights ago I sat down in the glow of oil lanterns and candles and scribbled some thoughts down. I’m in no way claiming there’s value in these musings; after all, they’re just musings and general statements/thoughts. But glean from them what you may and cheerfully toss aside the rest. 

Adulthood, perhaps, is what happens when we go from being dependent upon society to being part of the providential fabric of society. Adulthood is what happens when you stop putting your needs first and make someone—or something—more valuable than your own welfare. Our current western preoccupation with entertaining ourselves has stunted our growth so that many of us “never grow up”: we just leech off society in such a way that we can fuel our own appetites and entertain ourselves till the end of our days (noting, of course, that the majority of those using government help actually need it; the lazy and the exploiters need to get themselves in line). We’ve been numbed by our need to FEED our appetites; in the past, our appetites were curbed by lack of opportunity, scant resources, and the necessity to work to survive. Now we can feed all we want and live drunk off the pursuit of satisfying our appetites (and we’re even praised for it). Our lives thus become wrapped around these appetites at the expensive of everything else, so that we care more about what’s going on in Hollywood than Syria because Hollywood is what entertains us.

“What is it that makes a man?” Culture tells us real men are ripped and chiseled, able to fight off packs of wolves. And that’s it. How contemptible has society become when what matters is sexual prowess and the ability to stand your ground in a bar fight? There’s no denying that the more you resemble an animal in heat, the more of a “man” you really are. We used to have Albert Einstein and Amelia Earhart as role models; now we have the guidos of Jersey Shore and Miley Cyrus twerking (and, no, that’s not something from Bop-It). Where have the virtues gone? Courage, bravery, honor, pride, valor, honesty, truthfulness, loyalty, hard work and kindness? Our culture has tossed out “rules of life,” and most of us walk around intransigent, bound by nothing but our own appetites. Adulthood involves responsibility, “growing up,” knowing one day you’ll die and in that time you’d best make good on the life you’ve been given. And as for what it means to be a man, I can’t put out of my mind King David’s charge to his son Solomon who was about to become king: “Be strong, act like a man, and observe what the Lord requires: walk in obedience to him, and keep his decrees and commands, his laws and regulations.” 

When I think about what it means to be a man, one name keeps flashing through my mind: Jonas Parker. (You guys thought I was going to say General Cornwallis; not quite, though they’re from the same time period) We don’t know much about Jonas Parker; most notably he was related to John Parker, a veteran of the French and Indian War who was dying of tuberculosis on the morning of April 19th, 1775 when British regulars marched onto Lexington Green. The anxious minutemen and the jittery British regulars faced off, and despite British Major Pitcairn’s pleas for the rebels to disperse absent bloodshed, shots were fired (probably from the American side) and a skirmish ensued. “Skirmish” isn’t quite the right word: shots popped off, a British soldier was grazed in the leg, and a platoon of redcoats opened fire on the rebels. The rebels didn’t hold their ground (it would become a recurring theme with militia), and they scattered from the Green—except for a few. One of these was Jonas Parker. As his friends and fellow villagers abandoned him, he fired a shot and began reloading (a cumbersome, lengthy process). A ball went into his knee, and he toppled down to the ground. He brought himself up on his good knee and kept reloading, seemingly oblivious of the fact that everyone around him had already fled, and the redcoats were bearing upon him with their steel bayonets glistening in the pinkish morning light. Jonas Parker didn’t get off a second shot before the redcoats overcame him, stabbing him repeatedly until he bled out into the grass. Studying the outbreak of hostilities in Lexington, I can’t help but admire him. There was no way he thought he’d be getting out of it; he could’ve thrown aside his musket and fled into the fields and woods like nearly everyone else. But he, alone, stood his ground, even after being wounded, knowing full well that his own death would be by the cold steel of a British bayonet. I can’t pinpoint what it is, but I admire him.