"Old Man, Look At My Life"

So I was thinking about the trip back to Shawnee earlier today, and I started pondering one aspect of it specifically--my visit to the high school. I remember high school pretty wel, though I started it nigh on a decade ago. I don't remember being as snotty or as rude as most of those kids. I don't remember being as loud and obnoxious. And maybe I wasn't. Maybe a lot of the other kids, the ones I didn't see, are better behaved than the ones I did see.

But I distinctly remember not being that...young. They all look and act so young. Was I ever that young?

Part of me feels so much older than I am, like I'm already well beyond middle age and approaching dotage. Maybe that's from studying history.

On the other hand, another part of me feels significantly younger than my actual nearly-24 years. I feel perpetually childlike, mostly because I've kept a sense of humor about the majority of things in life (I've always said that if you can't find humor in something, you're probably taking it too seriously...though there are a few notable exceptions). That's what allows me to keep doing the comics and find enjoyment in simple things, and to keep from becoming the sour old people I see wandering the graduate history deparment. Many of them have scant years over me, and yet act like they are ancient, ponderous beings who cannot remember anything except musty books and stuffy libraries.

Age is such a weird thing. It supposedly determines what we are and are not mature enough to do in this society. Somehow, the difference between 20 and 21 is enough to allow one to legally drink. The difference between 17 and 18 is the difference between being able to smoke, vote, and get drafted, and not being able to do those things. But I've met small children who possess wisdom and a bearing far beyond their years. I've met adults who are no more mature than five year olds. It's something of a mystery how that works; how, as Monica put it, some souls seem to be "misplaced" in time.

Maybe it's a way of presenting different generations with a worldview alien to it. Who knows. Maybe it's silly to assume there's any sort of "logic" as we presume to know it to what God does in people's lives.

~chaos cricket

Song of the Moment: Flaming Lips, "Fight Test"