a little Thursday evening navel-gazing

[desh]

It occurred to me recently that I hit a turning point in my religious life about a year or two ago. Since 2001 or 2002 when I started getting more involved in Jewish stuff, and to a lesser extent for years before then, I thought of myself as finding my place within Jewish ritual observance. I had a sense for years that it was time for me to give up pork, and then one day in 1999, it was time; I was just ready. The same thing happened in 2001 with acknowledging Shabbat, in 2002 with giving up eating meat and dairy together, in 2003 with largely observing Shabbat the way I do now, and so on. I knew it was coming, and then one day, I knew it was time.

Well, that's not me anymore. I'll still strive to learn and grow, of course. But I've reached a plateau of sorts. Barring a change of heart, and modulo some small details, the sort of Jew I want to be is the one I already am. There's something nice about that, a certain sense of accomplishment, but there's also an associated shift in identity. I'm not the new kid in town learning his way around anymore.

***

I still mentally separate most people I know into "peers" and "adults". There's no overlap. Which is absurd, of course, given that I'm almost 26. It's even more absurd that I have 31 year old friends I think of as peers and 29 year old friends who are definitely adults. I'm not entirely sure what causes the distinction, but 90% of the people I interact with above the age of 17 have a clear category.

I think I've gotten used to my peers getting married, though it still weirds me out a bit. But having kids? Still really strange. That one will take me years to get used to. Adults, of course, can have kids without me blinking.

Also, I couldn't date an adult. It'd be way too weird. I'm not even attracted to them; it's like they're on a totally different plane.

***

A non-exhaustive list of the things I might be doing with my life right now if money were absolutely no object:

* What I'm doing now, except with every Friday off
* Linguistics grad school of some sort
* Working my way toward an important job in the world of American elections; perhaps I'd be in a Secretary of State's office somewhere, perhaps I'd be with the Committee of Seventy, or perhaps I'd be in an academic program of some sort

Now let's see, where was the last time I did this list? Ah, here.

Wow, no overlap at all! Crazy. I still like theater, but perhaps I've forgotten the appeal a bit since it's been almost 4 years since my last production work of any sort. I think game theory would remain just a hobby even if I had the time and money to really study it. I'm not ready to work for the Jews yet. (Hmm, "yet"? Maybe I have to rethink the first half of this post.) I suppose umpiring should've stayed on this list, but at the bottom. Besides, I'm more into football officiating lately anyway, though I have no idea how people break into that one.

Comments

[platypuses.livejournal.com]

Waaaaaait, I didn't know you are that into linguistics... whooooooooa. Really interesting about the peer/adult distinction---is anyone you went to Akiba with considered an adult to you? Am I in the peer category or kid category?

[desh]

I definitely like linguistics enough to want to spend some time studying it. Trouble is, I don't think I like it enough to try to find the sorts of careers that one needs to find after getting a graduate degree in it. But yeah. I worked at the LDC in summer 2002, took Liberman's LING 001 in fall 2002, and I was hooked. Perhaps without even realizing it; I've grown to like it more and more ever since.

It's interesting I don't have nearly as strong a peer/kid distinction as the peer/adult one. I interact with you in basically the same ways I interact with people my age; does that answer your question? And no, no one from Akiba, from my year or younger, is an "adult" in this sense. There are a couple people from older years who I see occasionally, though, and some of them are.

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

I've had weird peer/adult category mixing, and the lines are blurry. Like I would consider Rabbi Mike to be a peer, and maybe last year I would have considered Rabbi Seif an adult, but Rav Mordy and Limor are peers even though they're married with a kid. Ben is somewhere in the middle, being my thesis advisor, but I'm closer to being his equal than I was last year...

It's very confusing. I don't know when I'll ever consider myself an adult. As of now I'm still not one in my own mind, even if I can legally drink.

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

And btw you need to meet boroparkpyro because he's a JitW person and he's into linguistics (it was one of his majors) and he's around your age and I bet you would really like eachother.

[estepha.livejournal.com]

growing into official "adult" years is giving me similar problems.. i think age becomes more how people act/what they're dealing with in life. 21 and 22 year olds with houses and children= adults, but 30 y/olds that play video games all day? they're teenagers.

[sucellus.livejournal.com]

am I a peer or adult?
what about sam?

[desh]

Peers, both of you.

[sucellus.livejournal.com]

Sam claimed we would be adults because we live in the suburbs. Vindicated!!! :-)

[desh]

Ha! No, that might be one strike against your peerdom, but only one, and I've got a soft spot for the suburbs besides.

But I'll still make fun of you for it.

[schmoo2.livejournal.com]

Yay! Peers!!

[shekkichebaz.livejournal.com]

I just put in the first two applications to grad school (in linguistics) one to Stanford and one to U Penn. If you're into both linguistics and game theory check out Robin Clark at U Penn, he is a semanticist who is working to analyze conversations as games of partial information.

[desh]

...dude, not cool. Don't make me want to go back to school when I'm loving my job and my life as it is now.

If you end up at Penn, would you be working with this dude at all?

And I told Megan in an email, I'm vaguely in touch with an old ling prof I had at Penn, Mark Liberman. If there's any way that my knowing him would help you get more information about Penn, or something along those lines, let me know.