Growing Up

When I was nine we were studying religious education at school. Our teacher, Mr. Roberts, explained to us that on the Sabbath, Jews aren't allowed to use electricity. I immediately asked Mr. Roberts how Jewish people coped with not being able to flush their toilets on the Sabbath. I was convinced, you see, that toilets were electric. After a brief word from Mr. Roberts about shouting out in class (sadly neither my first nor my last warning in my fourteen years of schooling), it was explained that toilets were not run off electricity. I accepted this with the red-faced shame of a nine-year-old who had made a fool of himself in class and didn't mention this story to this day. The reason why I bring it up now? Because aged, twenty-three, and with a full fourteen years of academic and social education between now and then, I still don't know how toilets work. I can understand that the flush and the ballcock (the nine-year-old in me seriously loves that name) all contribute to pouring water into the bowl, but after that I am lost. Really lost.

I am twenty-three. I am a fully emancipated adult. I can get married and have children, or one, or neither. I can see the (next) world thanks to the army. Yet I have no idea of how a toilet works. Now, I am not a technically-minded person, so there are large gaps in my knowledge when it comes to a variety of things (see text messages below), and generally this leaves me with a sense of wonder and enjoyment. However, not knowing how toilets work means in this respect I have not advanced further than my nine-year-old self.

I am firmly of the (un-unique) opinion, that 'growing up' is a process of learning how much you don't know. This means that the transition from adolescence to adulthood is one marked by a growing sense of fear at the world. Two of my best friends in the entire world are training to be doctors. It is impossible to feel fully confident in the ability of doctors when you have seen a trainee surgeon being sick on the back of a taxi driver's head. However, this blog is not called 'reasons to be really afraid', because that's NOT fun, and also there are many blogs of that type out there.

Instead, this naivety and fear of the world has a positive manifestation. You see, everytime we, as burgeoning adults, achieve something that makes us feel as if we belong in the world of the grown ups, we take a huge, disproportionate amount of pride. I will never forget the sense of immense enjoyment I gained from changing my car tyre on my own. Just today I emptied the bag on a hoover. It was easy. Yet I got a swell of enormous, ridiculous smugness as I did something that adults do everyday. Chris Rock, in a somewhat controversial bit of standup, makes a distinction between 'black people' and 'niggers', by saying that 'niggers', always expect credit for things that they're supposed to do.

Well, I am not about to wade into this debate with the subtlety of an ageing half-Italian lothario at a ladies' night, but what I will say is that this is very much the process of growing up, at least for me. You see, growing up as a process is a win-win situation, because you always feel as if you should get credit for things you are supposed, or indeed have to do. The pride that comes from fixing your own bike, eating five portions of vegetables a day, from talking to a bank clerk about overdrafts is irrational, yes. But it is real. And we, as a group approaching gingerly the crazy world of adulthood, get to experience it every day. The world of mortgages and children is (for most) a reality, but for us it is the deep end of a pool we are learning doggy paddle in. Whilst we swim slow widths of the shallows, we gain an immense sense of pride and enjoyment. And that, at least for now, is a reason to be cheerful.