That's How People Grow Up. Or is It?

What makes someone a “grown up”, do you think? I’ve been thinking about this a bit recently, and I’m kind of confused about where the line is. For example, I was reading something the other day about a man who's promising $10000 to the person who introduces him to his future wife. This is kind of wacky in itself, I'll admit, but it wasn't that part that annoyed me. The article went on to scrutinise his various attributes in an attempt to decide whether he was in fact “marriage material", or whatever it is the ladies are calling potential husbands these days. Now, again, while I would normally find this kind of list appalling, this is an unusual case and he was sort of asking for it, so fair enough. Anyway, it went on to list the reasons for and against him. Things like his job, where he lived and what he liked to do where dissected and one strike against him was that one of his interests is skateboarding. This is where they lost me. Apparently being a 40 year old man who likes to ride a skateboard in his spare time indicates that he is some sort of immature man-child who never grew up. See, I would have said the fact that he was a 40 year old man (with 10 grand to spare!) was proof enough of his maturity, but what do I know?

I guess I just don't believe you can judge a person's level of maturity based on something as simplistic as their hobbies. As far as I can tell, hobbies are meant to be fun, and therefore should be beyond that kind of scrutiny. Are there people out there who don't indulge in the hobbies they really enjoy because they're afraid to be seen as immature? Or take part in hobbies they don't enjoy because it makes them seem more like a grown up? That would be a pretty sad way to live, I reckon. So what would have constituted a “mature” pastime for this man? How about reading, generally considered a perfectly respectable, possibly even “intellectual” thing to do. But what if, after deciding he's worth a shot based on this mature hobby, you discover that he only likes to read comic books. Does that count? It's still reading, right? Maybe he says he's passionate about movies, which would be great, who doesn't love movies? But then he goes on to tell you that Meet the Fockers is his favourite film and he thinks Adam Sandler has been sorely overlooked in the annual Oscar race. Or he spends his weekends scouring second-hand shops to add to his vintage collections, then proudly shows off his 732 My Little Ponies. Perhaps being a music fan would make him more appealing...until you find out that his favourite band is Nickelback. The point is, any measure of maturity, other than actual age, is subjective at best. As long as someone is responsible when it counts, I don't care if they spend the rest of their time playing with Barbie dolls and indulging in their love of fairy floss if that makes them happy.

Being a grown up is overrated, anyway. And really, what's the big deal about maturity? Maybe I'd feel differently if I wasn't a bit of a kidult myself, but I'm not going to take up golf or give up trashy television in an effort to appear more grown up to anyone. In fact, the older I get the more inclined I am to be child-like - some might even call it childish. Because even though we all step up and do the important things when it matters, a lot of the time being a responsible adult kind of sucks. Giving up the fun stuff just because you're not a kid anymore seems ridiculous to me. Life is too short to waste it on being a grown up.

750 Words

So I read about this site, 750 Words, on another blog a few days ago and I was intrigued by the concept. It's basically a website where you can register and it gives you a blank page on which to write at least 750 words a day - which is either a hell of a lot or very little, depending on what your feelings at the time are. Or maybe that's just me. Anyway, as far as I can tell, the idea is to just write what comes to mind and see where it takes you. Unlike a blog, it's completely private, so it's not as if others can see your ramblings either, which is pretty freeing when it comes to choosing what to write about. I joined for a couple of reasons 1) because I really do enjoy writing but am very bad at motivating myself to do most things, no matter how much I enjoy them, and 2) because I have been doing pretty much a version of this for a while now by writing myself emails.

750 words has some major advantages over the email thing. It keeps stats, for one thing, and I am obsessed with stats. Obsessed! In fact I'm toying with the idea of removing the stat counter from my blog because I spend more time analysing who has and hasn't read it than I do actually writing it. And maybe it's the old Luddite in me, but I still find it amazing that they can do things like tell you exactly where someone who's clicked a certain page lives. It's simultaneously amazing and a little creepy. The 750 words stats are different, though. They not only tell you the number of words you've written, they also tell you how long you took to write them and how many words you wrote per minute. They tell you how long your breaks were and they even have some fancy program that analyses your mood while you were writing. While that bit sometimes varies in its accuracy, I do find the results very interesting and it gives me something different to obsess over, which is great. Anyway, the most amazing thing about this site is that it works - I've only been doing it for a few days, but already I feel more inspired to write than I have in a long, long time. Perhaps it's the freedom of writing whatever I like, or the incentive of a goal to reach. One big advantage over emails is that I'm much less likely to fall into the self-pitying woe-is-me stuff. It may be hard to believe, but I'm even more whiny when no one else can hear me. On here though, I feel like I need to write something more. Something...I don't know...better.

So far I think it's kind of ingenious. I'm sure I won't always be this keen, and I'm bound to miss some days, but I have already found myself making a mental note of things that happen during the day that I can write about. It even sends me a reminder email each day, so I can't tell myself I "forgot". And since I'm writing this on 750 words (I'll copy and paste into the blog when I'm done) I can keep up my daily writing and still occasionally write a blog. At the same time! There's even a challenge where you register at the beginning of each month and pledge to write every day. I'm still considering whether I'm game for April, but I think I might just do it. I literally have nothing to lose, and who knows, I may even manage to write something worthwhile. I mean, it's not likely, but you never know. And if I fail then eh, it's not like I haven't failed at just about everything before. I do have to remind myself that if I run out of anything else to write I can just type 750 swear words. Which would be kind of awesome, actually. Not that I know 750 different swear words (yet), but I don't mind doubling up on a few. Maybe that could be my own little challenge for the month.

My favourite part though, is the last 50 words. I'm always a little nervous about whether or not I'm going to make it, and I love watching the word count creep up as I type. In the end I'm left with a wonderful feeling of accomplishment, which is not something I feel very often. It's been worthwhile just for that.

The Joy of Misery

I like to think of myself as a fairly miserable person. And I do mean “like”. I enjoy complaining. It's fun. It gets the stupid, petty annoyances out of my head so I can let them go before they become bigger, more serious annoyances. It's not that I don't like being happy, that would be ridiculous. It's just...I don't know, I'm happier when I'm not so happy, if that makes sense. I think it's at least partly because whenever I allow myself to think things are going well, something almost always happens to prove me wrong. Why waste precious optimism only to be disappointed? And I like my pessimistic perspective, it means I can always be pleasantly surprised when things do go well, which they actually do occasionally. I guess it's a survival instinct, and after trying to fight it for a long time, I have come to like being a miserable cow.

There's a certain joy to misery that the outwardly cheerful don't seem to get. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the happy people, I really do. I would even go so far as to say I envy their positive outlook. But I can't deny that I do get pleasure from complaining and ranting; a good rant can be wonderfully cathartic! And I appreciate other people's rants, too. I get it. I understand the need to just let it out, and I'm happy to be the audience they're looking for. Surely we all just want to be heard, don't we? I kind of wish more people got the need to rant, actually. And I do get tired of the hearing the “perspective” lecture, even when it's not aimed at me. I have perspective, as I'm sure most people do. I know I am luckier than most, particularly in light of the tragic suffering and loss that's been going on recently. Complaining doesn't lessen my appreciation for what I have, or take away from the suffering of others. It's just nice to have someone listen and sympathise occasionally, no matter how petty or trivial those complaints might be. It's not about the level of importance, it's just about what's bugging me right now. Let me have my rant and I'll be done. There are very few things more frustrating than feeling dismissed because your problems aren't deemed “big” or worthy enough. Which is why there's so much joy in being around others of a similar disposition, particularly when they share the excitement of starting a sentence with “Do you know what I hate?” Yes! Bring on the ranting!

I realise that my love of misery might make me seem kind of odd, but you know what? I don't care. Okay. I do care. It's hard to give up wanting to be liked, but I am working on caring a little less, anyway. It's part of my new policy to embrace my misery. Ironically, I think mastering that will actually make me happier. Although then I'd have less to complain about. Damn it! I haven't thought this through, have I? I'm going to have to give this a lot more thought...which will almost certainly lead to me over thinking it and that always makes me miserable. Awesome!

Pay Attention to Me! Or don't. That's fine.

So. I haven’t been here for a while, but I’ve been feeling the urge to write something lately so here I am, although I’m not entirely sure what to write about anymore. I’ve covered most of my faults, or at least the ones I’m willing to talk about publicly, so what else is there? I guess I could do a diet update, but even I’m not particularly interested in that, so I’d hardly expect anyone else to be. I miss writing regularly, but I think having a break from it has been a good thing. I'm not sure that many people write or read blogs much anymore, do they? I know I don’t read as many as I used to, so maybe it’s just a bit old school in these days of Twittering and Facebook updating.

I’ve always struggled with the attention seeking aspects of blog writing, anyway. I normally avoid undue attention as much as possible and, if asked, I would say I hate being the centre of attention. But I realise that this isn’t entirely true. I want to be noticed as much as the next person; I’m just very quiet and unassuming about it. It’s more a case of I quite like being on the outskirts of attention, just not right smack in the centre of it. I want to be noticed without me having to draw attention to myself, if that makes sense, which admittedly hardly ever works. And we all go searching for attention in our own ways, don’t we? It’s just that I have a very odd relationship with it. On the one hand I like and need it, obviously, but on the other I don’t assume that all attention is going to be good. In fact, in my mind, the more I put myself out there the more likely it is that someone is going to come along and say something less than positive. How awful would that be?! Of course this has never happened, but don’t doubt the ability of a dyed-in-the-wool pessimist like myself to assume the worst. In fact, blog-wise, all I’ve ever gotten was lovely, like-minded people saying kind and supportive things, so it is an entirely irrational and unfounded fear, but I wouldn't let that stop me. Mostly I just feel like I’m having a constant “Pay attention to me! Don’t look at me! Why aren’t they looking at me?!” conversation with myself. It can be exhausting inside my head; I really must get out of it more often.

Anyway, on the positive side, hardly anyone reads this anymore, which in theory should make me feel less self-conscious about it, but it doesn’t seem to work that way. I now know there may be something worse than getting negative attention – not getting any attention at all. So all this boils down to me, here, writing a blog about writing blogs in an effort to get some sort of attention (hey, it turns out I do have more faults to write about. Awesome.) Not so much ironic as it is pathetic, really. I imagine you feel the much the same way having read right to the end, huh? Sorry about that, but thanks for paying attention.