VOL.II HOW TO OVERCOME ADULTHOOD

We are fragile creatures, so fragile that a mere eyelash on the brink of our eyelids can create a state of severe distress. And yet, we are meant to delve into a world of complexity. It’s a predisposed notion that we operate heavy machinery, go to war, pay our taxes, and simultaneously have a higher purpose for living. Somehow, we are expected to know these things by the time we are 18 years old. You’re supposed to have a conceived apprehension of the world with no real preparation whatsoever outside of an academic curriculum. If you dare to choose not to conform to a predetermined template for a lifestyle that’s been handpicked for you, and create a world from scratch, the overwhelming nature of it all can leave you crippled at your bedside table.

When you hold a child’s hand through the airport, they feel secure in their environment. The moment you let go and leave them there, they are overcome with the realization of their complex surroundings. This can be applied to the emergence into adulthood; your hand is let go, and you find yourself adapting to an entirely new realm of existence, no longer in a secure state of being. This can explain the formation of communities, families, social structures, and even our natural inclination towards the digital age. Roaming this world alone is almost inconceivable. When you choose to dislocate yourself from traditional means of living, a set life designed to control the middle class but also create a sense of comfort to ensure survival, you are serving a sentence of solitude filled with complexity. This creates the opportunity for ‘nots’; the overbearing nature of the world can eliminate the feeling of possibility. You begin not to do things because you can’t comprehend how to begin. The enemy of humanity is uncertainty. This book serves as an attempted guide to navigate the adult world—we start off reminiscing about the parts of us left in childhood, move on to the stories of the people around us and the worlds they have formed, delve into better habits, and indulge in our creative impulses.