At 33 I continue to suffer from either profound naivete or extreme ignorance. Guilty as charged, your honor. I grant that I have been derelict in my less-than adult-like behavior but I do not accept your draconian rule. Therefore I refuse your sentence of forced adulthood. Shove my head in a guillotine. Let gravity do the rest. Say a little prayer for me as my severed head hits the basket just in case I'm wrong about God. Sorry, God/Goddess. It was never a personal thing. The only belief is nonbelief as far as I'm concerned. It's truly better that way, trust me.

The above-mentioned naivete and ignorance still messes with my head because I don't want to acknowledge the ever present pull of adulthood. Long ago in the days of exploration and possibilities, curled up in a protective blanket of hash smoke, friends and music, I saw the whole world as a huge, limitless playground. Life was out there waiting. A huge, overflowing plate of total fucking intensity just waiting for me to gorge myself. There was just one thing I didn't take into account: adulthood. I didn't realize that as people get older they get incredibly boring and reactionary, and their ignorance and foolishness holds all we libertines back. Hey, just look at Kerouac- literati to dottering old reactionary fool. Well, fuck him if he was that weak. We're not necessarily talking a sudden occurrence in one's 40's or 50's either. The process is progressive, subtle and irreversible. It usually begins sometime between the ages of 22 and 30. Maybe I wasn't given the proper manual explaining the unavoidable and tragic downfall into the morass of adulthood:

ch. 3, sec. 12, subparagraph 9: Upon completion of late adolescence said person must proceed directly to adulthood. Said person should alter his/her/its personality to become extremely boring, intolerant of those younger than him/her/it and also limit all cultural interest to that which occurred during his/her/its late teens and early twenties. The above-mentioned person should take their already acquired propensity to value only money and material things to extreme lengths in order to support the prevailing growth economy. The most crucial and important step in the process, which under no circumstances should be taken lightly nor ignored, is the cultivation of the ability to see the world in nothing other than self-absorbed, security and comfort-driven economic terms. This step cannot be overlooked not overemphasized. The result of this process is complete and irreversible.

There you have it- the new you. Congratulations on your initiation into the wonderful drudgery of adulthood. And as a new member of our mandatory club we'd like to bestow upon you the gifts of an unbelievably mind-numbing job, spouse, kids, mortgage, monthly payments on two brand new, useless, overpriced sport utility vehicles and a whole two weeks off a year to really live. Enjoy!!!!

Thanks, but piss off.

Of course childhood and adolescence have their downsides also. I don't mean to suggest that we should forever freeze ourselves as fourteen year olds. We've all been there. Wouldn't that suck. But then again, most problems kids run up against can easily be traced back to the adult world so I figure if we get rid of adults we'll all be better off. I'm not advocating any bizarre genocidal ritual or anything. Just a methodic and well-devised plan to make adulthood obsolete and inefficient. What I do suggest is that we combine the spontaneity and energy of youth with the accumulated knowledge and understanding of later life to create the purest of bliss. Perhaps we would realize the reason we find most adults boring is because they are boring, and we should try as we might to avoid the same fate ourselves. No rules or regulations about what you can do or who you can be; just a ban on stupidity, vapidness and reactionary politics- liberal or conservative, Marxist or anarchist, and all the other bizarre and laughable pseudo-philosophies roaming around out there.

There, that wasn't so bad, was it? We would all be happy, play all day, ignore genre-of-the-moment music and cheesy fashion trends (platform shoes became extinct for a reason and we should respect evolution). Hipeoisie beware, the game is afoot.

But who knows what'll happen. I'm far from out of the woods. Do not underestimate adulthood's incessant pull, nor overestimate your ability to withstand it. Perhaps it will happen to me. I feel it happening already, in fact. A sad and heinous thought for sure, but certainly not out of the realm of possibilities because behind the shield of sarcasm and anger lies fear; the fear that I am as weak and scared as Kerouac was, the fear of loneliness. Perhaps my continuing to write will provide me with a talisman to ward off the seemingly inevitable. I just don't wanna die knowing that I gave up and slinked coweringly into the hellish depths of adulthood.

As a paean to freedom and discovery let us not forget the immortal words of that 1980's lyrical lush, Paul Westerberg:

"opportunity knocks once then the door slams shut
all I know is I'm sick of everything that money can buy
a fool wastes his life, god rest his guts"

Fuckin' A-(men).