Final Blogpost - Matt Kolzow

 I’d been wondering about it, the concept of what it means to grow up in this world. What does it mean to become an adult, let alone why should we live in this world? It was a late night and I had to get some opinions on this. Just what did it mean to grow up and why should we?

I asked my friend Susan Neiman first.

Matt: Hey Susan! I’m glad I could get to you at this time but I wanted to hear your thoughts on why we should grow up and what it means to actually grow up.

Susan: No worries! I’ll start with what it means to grow up. The term growing up can be a bit ambiguous, there are many different concepts and ideas of what it is so we use a marker system instead. “Leaving your parents home, paying your own bills, having successful intimate relations are all signs of being an adult, and anyone who fails to show such signs by a certain age will be suspected of one pathology or another” (WGU 123). However even people who do hit those markers can still be considered immature and unadult like so I don’t use those as the exact definition. Other signs of adulthood are one’s education, where they have traveled, and working. Those all contribute to hopefully undercut are views of what we believe in from our upbringing. Challenging those views and considering if they are truly your own views are another part of growing up in the world. “Growing up is a process of sifting through your parents choices about everything” (WGU 125). If you can say you would have agreed with one of their choices such as music for yourself then that’s great and you can thank them for that! But only relying on what they have told you to believe is not growing up.

Matt: You made some great points Susan, particularly breaking away from your parent’s ideas of being exclusive and being open to challenging their views along with your own. Becoming your own person I guess really is the definition of growing up, fitting yourself and your identity into the world we live in.

I invited John Kaag to the conversation to offer his thoughts on the question.

John: Perhaps it’s a bit dark of an answer but growing up is understanding that reality is full of despair, we can’t hide from that. “If one looks carefully, suffering is not the exception but the rule” (SSHM 43).However, despite that growing up is also understanding the free will we have as beings in life. We don’t have to just let life kick us down and control us with its despair, instead we take charge of our life and actions as we become older. Growing up is truly taking control of your life and not just sitting around for the ride that is life. I would like to also cover your question of why we should live in this world Matt. Jokingly life is worth living - maybe, I don’t think life has to have some set reason or purpose. “One surefire way to send jumpers off the edge is to pretend you know something they don’t” (SSHM 172). You have to find your own purpose to live and take steps to improve it. Don’t just accept life as it is for yourself, make the changes you want to see and take back control, as only you can give your life meaning.

Matt: Wow… it was strangely therapeutic to listen to your words on life John. I used to believe there was just some inherit reason we all live, but the concept of taking control of your life really captures my feelings today. Life is what you make of it and the first step to living is taking control for yourself.

As the conversation went on I thought of Susan’s book and the ideas she brought from Hannah Arendt. In the moment I felt as if Hannah was in our skype call, here to offer up some words on the questions as well.

Matt: Perhaps this is the lack of sleep I’ve had recently but welcome to the conversation Hannah!

Hannah: Happy to be here in your imagination!, I’ve been listening to the conversation and I think Susan has made some great points. Education specifically is there for children to be “introduced” to the world. School is the middle ground between the family and the world. It serves to help the bridge of concepts, cultures, ideas, and many other things to children's own ideas. They take the knowledge they learn into their own life and hopefully make their own views as they become older. We teach them to engage in debate with others views, question their own, and have mutual recognition for their peers and everyone else in life.

Matt: I think you have the right idea of what school should be. It can be very rudimentary and some children believe what we learn is unimportant. I hope we can further improve our schools to help the next generation “grow up” along with ourselves. If we can learn from them as well, we too can still grow up.

With that I said my goodbyes and headed to bed with my newfound thoughts and ideas on what it really is to “grow up”.