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TechnographI'm 25 years old. Now what?
By Scott Green
Posted: 10/2/08 Section: Opinion Columns
I turned 25 Sunday, and I'm not happy about it. Yes, I received some lovely gifts, and yes, I spent the weekend surrounded by family and friends, but every time someone asked me to smile for a picture, I felt like they were sizing me up for dentures.
I don't like being 25 on a college campus, where everyone is younger than me, including most tenured professors. When I bought textbooks this year, a number of people in line, waiting to purchase titles such as "Quantified Nanobiology Theory and Practice in Latin," looked like they had come straight to college immediately after an excellent showing in the third grade.
Of course, they were actually regular undergraduates aged 18 and above. Any 9-year-old with the chops for college would go to a much more prestigious school than this one. When I was a freshman, I never thought I looked so young. I believed my appearance was the same as everyone else between ages 18 and 30. But after reexamining photos from that era, it is obvious that I was young and immature. The pacifier and bib are dead giveaways. I never should have joined that fraternity.
Twenty-five is a quarter-century, a milestone, and so I can't help but compare myself to famous people to see what they had done by this age. James Dean won an Academy Award. Joan of Arc led an army to several victories in battle. (The French army, even, making it far more impressive.) And they were both dead by 25! So things could be worse.
I'm still left feeling old, a condition that will only worsen in time. In another 25 years I'll be eligible for AARP; in 40 I'll qualify for senior pricing at the movies; in 55, I'll be a burden on my family; etc.
I already know a lot of the tricks of old age. I know that old people discuss things around each other we would never share with you. What happens is, we identify ourselves by each saying the secret old person code ("God, my back is killing me"), so we know we are in safe company. Then we can then talk about secret old people things, like ways to trick young people into paying more into social security.
I don't like being 25 on a college campus, where everyone is younger than me, including most tenured professors. When I bought textbooks this year, a number of people in line, waiting to purchase titles such as "Quantified Nanobiology Theory and Practice in Latin," looked like they had come straight to college immediately after an excellent showing in the third grade.
Of course, they were actually regular undergraduates aged 18 and above. Any 9-year-old with the chops for college would go to a much more prestigious school than this one. When I was a freshman, I never thought I looked so young. I believed my appearance was the same as everyone else between ages 18 and 30. But after reexamining photos from that era, it is obvious that I was young and immature. The pacifier and bib are dead giveaways. I never should have joined that fraternity.
Twenty-five is a quarter-century, a milestone, and so I can't help but compare myself to famous people to see what they had done by this age. James Dean won an Academy Award. Joan of Arc led an army to several victories in battle. (The French army, even, making it far more impressive.) And they were both dead by 25! So things could be worse.
I'm still left feeling old, a condition that will only worsen in time. In another 25 years I'll be eligible for AARP; in 40 I'll qualify for senior pricing at the movies; in 55, I'll be a burden on my family; etc.
I already know a lot of the tricks of old age. I know that old people discuss things around each other we would never share with you. What happens is, we identify ourselves by each saying the secret old person code ("God, my back is killing me"), so we know we are in safe company. Then we can then talk about secret old people things, like ways to trick young people into paying more into social security.
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