Once upon a time, when we were savage and wicked, cold and naked we understood when childhood ended. Boys would be taken to sacred caves and inducted into the rites of manhood, girls would be taken by the women. There was a clear rite of passage, which still persists in the sad and broken corners of the world, far from civilization.
I am no fan of the idea of noble savagery. There is nothing particularly noble about starving because you cannot hunt, of freezing in the rain and wind, of fearing the dark and thinking that sorcerers and witchdoctors are responsible for all your worldly ills.
There is no nobility in dying of diseases you cannot understand that were solved by men who rejected savagery, who rejected the cold and hunger and fear, the superstitions, long ago. There is no nobility in murdering another for his wife, in rape as a form of courtship, in cannibalism.
But so too, there is no honor in rejecting old ways that work, that had merit and value.
You can drive, fuck and even marry at 16, but you can't pose nude, smoke or vote until you are 18, and you can't drink until you are 21.
Those are the lines written in the law, but as a culture you are still a child until you've graduated college and moved out of your parents house. You aren't expected to marry, to start a family until you are thirty, or thereabouts. You can be carried on your parents insurance until you are 26 now, and we fill our time with childish amusements until....
Until when?
When do we put aside the petty toys, the games?
When do we decide that our own ease and comfort matters less than that of our brothers?
I am as guilty as the rest, in my own ways. I enjoy my games and amusements, I comment on them, analyze them, play them. I dedicate my life to mastery of some games, it seems.
In my defense, I at least gave of myself to an unworthy nation in its dying days, wrecking my body and wasting my youth in service to others. I put aside childish things, childish wants and sacrificed.
Yet I feel I was the fool all along. Why did I struggle so hard to become a Man, when manhood itself was rejected and abused? Why did I step up when others not only declined, but mocked me for my foolish dedication to old fashioned ideals.
This is how a nation dies. Not with a bang, nor a whimper. Not with petty applause and unwarranted cheers.
It dies in diapers and games. It dies full of peter pans and tinker bells, playing in their private wonderlands and crying that the world is not, quite, entertaining them enough.
Games are not the problem. Amusements are not the problem. They are but a symptom. There are always the slow days and dull moments that could use levity and joy, that can be filled with harmless pursuits of whimsy.
But to idolize the selfishness, the absorption of the very young, to protest that there is no higher cause in life than to see through the eyes of the children our culture no longer wants? A million voices crying out for the next great game?
A pox on your houses.
As for me? I have retired from my foolish quests, my desire to make the world better, to make all of you better. Now I merely rage against the dying of the light... and wait for my fancy gaming machine to once again charge off to battle, as I play a space ninja killing clones for the glory of the Lotus.
Huzzah.
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