Adulting Fast and Slow（成年期的快与慢）

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ADULT-LIKE CHILDREN

像成年人一样的孩子

Video destroyed the innocence of childhood. Before the invention of television in 1950, knowledge about full adult life was guarded from children in books. Kids were shielded from money, death, violence, and especially, sex. Kids couldn’t read until their teenage years, so adults concealed taboo topics in writing.

视频摧毁了童年的纯真。在1950年电视发明之前，关于完整成人生活的知识在书本上被保护起来。孩子们被保护免受金钱、死亡、暴力，尤其是性的影响。孩子们直到十几岁才能阅读，所以成年人在写作中隐藏禁忌话题。

That changed with the invention of television, which took ideas out of books and put them on video. Text ceased to be a barrier so children were exposed to mature content from a young age. For example, kids can’t understand Fifty Shades of Grey, but because of Instagram, they know how to twerk like Miley Cyrus. As Ben Sasse wrote in The Vanishing American Adult:

随着电视的发明，这种情况发生了变化，电视将想法从书本中取出并将它们放在视频中。文本不再是一个障碍，所以孩子们从小就接触到成熟的内容。例如，孩子们无法理解《五十度灰》，但由于Instagram，他们知道如何像麦莉赛勒斯一样扭动。正如本·萨斯（Ben Sasse）在《消失的美国成年人》中所写:

“Practically nothing [on television] is taboo or off limits. Because television doesn’t know or care who’s watching, the medium effectively “adultifies” children while infantilizing adults; it doesn’t judge its viewers, nothing is shameful.”

“[电视上]几乎没有什么是禁忌或禁忌。因为电视不知道也不关心谁在看，媒体有效地“成人化”了孩子，而使成年人幼稚化;它不评判观众，没有什么是可耻的。”

When I was a kid, ESPN ran on channel 38. Four clicks away, on channel 42, I routinely stumbled upon soft-core pornographic images like Brittany Spears’ Toxic music video.

我小时候 ESPN 在38频道播出。四次点击之后，在42频道，我经常偶然发现一些软色情图片，比如 Brittany Spears 的毒性音乐视频。

In our video-first age, children and adults watch the same things on television, which was never true for books. 12-year-olds don’t read Hegel. By moving from a book-centric culture to an image-centric one, we created a Peter Pan Generation of childish adults who refuse to grow up.

在我们这个视频优先的时代，儿童和成人在电视上看同样的东西，这对书籍来说从来都不是这样。12岁的孩子不读黑格尔。通过从以书为中心的文化转向以图像为中心的文化，我们创造了彼得潘一代拒绝长大的幼稚成年人。

CHILDISH ADULTS

幼稚的成年人

While children act like adults, adults also act like children. With the rise of video, the social—and moral—transition from childhood into adulthood disappeared. Maturing into literacy lost its significance because kids already knew the secrets once reserved for adulthood. As Neil Postman wrote: “Everywhere one looks, the behavior, language, attitudes, and desires—even the physical appearance—of adults and children are becoming increasingly indistinguishable.”

当孩子表现得像成年人时，成年人也表现得像孩子。随着视频的兴起，从童年到成年的社会和道德转变消失了。由于孩子们已经知道了曾经为成年人保留的秘密，所以成长为识字者失去了它的意义。正如尼尔•波斯特曼(Neil Postman)所写: “无论人们看到哪里，成年人和儿童的行为、语言、态度和欲望——甚至是外表——都变得越来越难以区分。”

I agree with Postman: the barriers between childhood and adulthood have disappeared. Responsible only for ourselves, we’ve extended the age of adolescence and postponed the transition into adulthood. Young adults who begin by postponing marriage and parenthood are increasingly dependent on their parents for housing and financial support. As the $16 billion plastic surgery market shows, we prefer the purity of youth to the scars of wisdom.

我同意波斯曼特的观点: 童年和成年之间的障碍已经消失了。只对自己负责，我们延长了青春期的年龄，推迟了向成年的过渡。从推迟结婚和为人父母开始的年轻人越来越依赖父母提供住房和经济支持。正如160亿美元的整形手术市场所显示的那样，我们更喜欢年轻人的纯洁，而不是智慧的伤疤。

Gone are the coming-of-age rituals which once carried the maturing mind forward. In Beliefs and Rites, anthropologist Lorna Marshall writes about little Nyae Nyae !Kung boys who used to practice shooting and play with bows and arrows. The transition into adulthood came when they began to hunt with their fathers. But the “Rite of First Kill” was the most important ritual, which arrived after a boy had killed his first big meat animal. To mark the portal into adulthood, boys were seared with life-long scars to show they had been “cut with meat.”

曾经推动思想成熟的成年仪式已经消失了。在《信仰与仪式》一书中，人类学家罗娜 · 马歇尔写到了小尼亚！孔家男孩以前练习射击，玩弓箭。当它们开始和父亲一起狩猎时，就进入了成年期。但“首杀仪式”是最重要的仪式，它是在一个男孩杀死了他的第一个大型肉类动物之后到来的。为了标志这个入口进入成年期，男孩们被烙上了终生的伤疤，以表明他们是“被肉割伤的”

Today, we have no such black-and-white rituals. Drinking alcohol? That starts in high school. Legalized voting? Nobody celebrates that. Getting your driver’s license? Not as cool as it used to be. Bar Mitzvah? People remember the party, not the service.

今天，我们没有这种非黑即白的仪式。喝酒？从高中开始。合法投票？没人会庆祝的。考驾照了吗？不像以前那么酷了。成人礼？人们记住的是派对，而不是仪式。

For the first time in more than 130 years, Americans 18 to 34 are more likely to live under their parents’ roof than with a spouse or partner in their own home. Today, 25% of Americans between 25 and 29 live with their parents, compared with 18% just over a decade ago.

130多年来，18至34岁的美国人第一次更愿意住在父母的屋檐下，而不是和配偶或伴侣一起住在自己家里。如今，25岁至29岁的美国人中有25% 与父母住在一起，而十年前这一比例仅为18% 。

Source: Washington Post

The aversion to adulthood is most evident in cities, where people lack family, religion, and community. Since the Enlightenment, people in The West have chosen the path of more freedom at every turn. But we made a Faustian bargain. In search of individuality, we freed ourselves from family, church, and community.

对成年的厌恶在城市中最为明显，那里的人们缺乏家庭、宗教和社区。自从启蒙运动以来，西方人在每一个转折点都选择了更加自由的道路。但我们做了浮士德式的交易。为了追求个性，我们把自己从家庭、教会和社区中解放出来。

In 1800, three-quarters of American workers were farmers. They lived in big, sprawling households. Until 1850, roughly three-quarters of Americans older than 65 lived with their kids and grandkids. Industrialization and cheap transportation changed that. People left their home towns and flocked to big cities. The landscape of marriage changed in response. In 1932, one-third of married couples lived within a five-block radius of each other before they tied the knot. The average woman was married at 20, men at 23.

在1800年，四分之三的美国工人是农民。他们住在宽敞的大家庭里。直到1850年，大约四分之三65岁以上的美国人与他们的子女和孙辈生活在一起。工业化和廉价交通改变了这一切。人们离开家乡，涌向大城市。婚姻的格局也随之改变。1932年，三分之一的已婚夫妇在结婚前都住在相距五个街区的范围内。平均女性20岁结婚，男性23岁结婚。

Our jobs have changed, too. Graduates from top universities overwhelmingly work for professional services companies in management consulting and investment banking. Sure, they have sexy brands to make mamma and papa proud. Some even get to ride the private jet. But the vast majority of people I know at these companies are plotting to escape like they’re stuck on Alcatraz.

我们的工作也变了。来自顶尖大学的毕业生绝大多数在管理咨询和投资银行的专业服务公司工作。当然，他们有性感的头衔，让爸爸妈妈感到骄傲。有些人甚至可以乘坐私人飞机。但我在这些公司认识的绝大多数人都像困在恶魔岛一样密谋逃跑。

THE HOPELESSNESS OF ADULTHOOD AND THE “ADULTING” MEME

成人期的绝望与“成人”文化基因

The childish adult phenomenon is well captured by the “adulting” meme. On the surface, the meme is a response to the overwhelming number of things you need to do as an adult: go to the gym, get your work done, answer emails, make the bed, clean the kitchen, sweep the floors, file taxes, buy groceries, put the kids to bed.

“成人”文化基因很好地捕捉到了这种幼稚的成人现象。从表面上看，这种文化基因是对大量成年人需要做的事情的回应: 去健身房，完成工作，回复邮件，整理床铺，打扫厨房，扫地，报税，买杂货，哄孩子睡觉。

On a deeper level, though, I think this meme stems from a perception of adulthood as a hopeless enterprise. It represents a mentality that encourages people to retreat into a nihilistic, bubble-wrapped cocoon of deferred responsibility.

That passivity is the mark of a generation overwhelmed by contemporary life. They lack clear role models for how to behave. Our anything-goes world suffers from a tempest of uncertainty about how to “adult.” Noble virtues—honor, courage, loyalty—are dismissed.

不过，在更深层次上，我认为这种文化基因源于一种观念，即成年是一项没有希望的事业。它代表了一种心态，鼓励人们退回到虚无主义的、被泡沫包裹的、推迟承担责任的茧中。这种被动性是被当代生活淹没的一代人的标志。他们缺乏明确的行为榜样。我们这个随心所欲的世界正遭受着一场关于如何“成熟”的不确定风暴高尚的美德——荣誉、勇气和忠诚——被摒弃。

I lived this first-hand in college, where my friends and I tipped our bottles to the “best four years of our lives.” Tuesdays were for beer trivia, Thursdays were for bar crawls, Fridays were for house parties, and Saturdays were for day drinking.

我在大学里亲身体验过这种生活，在那里，我和朋友们把酒瓶倾倒在“我们生命中最美好的四年”星期二是啤酒琐事，星期四是酒吧狂欢，星期五是家庭聚会，星期六是白天喝酒。

Can you blame us? In the age of iron-grip parenting, college felt like the only time in our lives when we wouldn’t have to act like professionals. In my own social circle, the pursuit of an Ivy League diploma began before we were aware of it. The siren at the start of the race sounded on the first day of elementary school, when our mothers packed our lunch boxes just as we tightened our Toy Story backpacks and marched into the classroom. Instead of playing in the backyard, we built our resumes with extracurriculars. Piano lessons, SAT prep, theatre, volunteering, study abroad — our childhoods were curated for the college admissions knife fight.

这能怪我们吗？在这个铁腕父母的时代，大学似乎是我们一生中唯一不必表现得像专业人士的时候。在我自己的社交圈里，对常春藤联盟文凭的追求在我们意识到之前就已经开始了。比赛开始的警报声在小学的第一天响起，当我们的妈妈打包我们的午餐盒时，我们正在收紧我们的玩具总动员背包，大步走进教室。我们没有在后院玩耍，而是利用课外活动来建立我们的简历。钢琴课、 SAT 预科、戏剧、志愿服务、出国留学——我们的童年是为了大学入学争夺战而策划的。

Those college years were sold as the peak. We never thought life could improve after graduation, and we dreaded the monotonous, desk-chained rituals of adulthood. All that rebellious energy was set to fire by movies like Animal House and Project X, which celebrated the freedom of life without adults. College was the only time we’d have autonomy, so instead of discovering our telos, we flew the flag of anarchy.

那些大学时光被当作顶峰出售。我们从来没有想过毕业后生活会有所改善，我们害怕成年后单调乏味、被办公桌束缚的生活方式。所有这些反叛的能量都被像《动物屋》和《 X 计划》这样的电影点燃了，这些电影庆祝没有成年人的自由生活。大学是我们唯一拥有自主权的时候，所以我们没有发现我们的终极目标，而是打起了无政府主义的旗帜。

TRYING TO ADULT

努力成熟

I’m writing this essay not because I’m above these problems, but because I suffer from them too. I am surprisingly childish. At 25, I still can’t handle the demands of adult life, from filing my taxes to incorporating an LLC, without my parents’ help. When tax season rolls around, I still call my father. Booking the best flights? Same thing. Sometimes, I feel like my life is on the brink of collapse— stitched together with second-hand duct tape.

我写这篇文章并不是因为我超越了这些问题，而是因为我也深受其害。我真是太幼稚了。25岁了，没有父母的帮助，我还是无法应付成年生活的各种需求，从报税到注册有限责任公司。纳税季节到了，我还是会打电话给我爸爸。预定最佳航班？一样。有时候，我觉得自己的生活濒临崩溃——用二手胶带缝在一起。

I’m learning. I first confronted my aversion to responsibility in 2018, when I had just been laid off from a job and was struggling to build my first business. Desperate for clients, I called my mentor Brent. When he asked why I wanted to work for myself, I said, “I want the freedom to do what I want.”

我在学习。2018年，我第一次面对自己对责任的厌恶，当时我刚刚被解雇，正在努力创建自己的第一家企业。由于急需客户，我给我的导师布伦特打了电话。当他问我为什么想为自己工作时，我说: “我想要做我想做的事情的自由。”

With grace and generosity, Brent encouraged me to reconsider my lust for freedom and embrace virtues like duty, thrift, and commitment. He explained to me that responsibility can be more rewarding than freedom alone.

带着优雅和慷慨，布伦特鼓励我重新考虑自己对自由的渴望，拥抱责任、节俭和承诺等美德。他向我解释说，责任比单独的自由更有价值。

Brent’s critique of freedom went against everything society told me to do. The ultimate millennial dream is “Stay single, pursue a four-hour workweek, and become a digital nomad. Most of all, stay free.”

布伦特对自由的批判违背了社会要求我做的一切。千禧一代的终极梦想是“保持单身，每周工作四小时，成为数字游牧民族。最重要的是，保持自由。”

This lifestyle is superficially glamorous, but ultimately unfulfilling. It’s a life without the love that only devotion can provide. Eventually, it resembles the sampling tables at Costco: sure, you can try a cosmopolitan buffet of snacks, but cheese from a disposable paper cup will never give you the nutrients you need.

这种生活方式表面上很迷人，但最终却不能让人满足。这是一种没有爱的生活，只有奉献才能提供。最终，它类似于好市多(Costco)的样品桌: 当然，你可以尝试世界各地的自助小吃，但一次性纸杯奶酪永远不会提供你所需的营养。

WE NEED TO REPLACE “FREEDOM FROM” WITH “FREEDOM TO”

我们得把“自由来自”换成“自由去到”

Ben Sasse, the aforementioned Senator of Nebraska and the former President of Midland College distinguishes between “freedom to” virtues and “freedom from” ones. Every year at Midland, the faculty surveyed its students. Time and again, students described canceled classes as the best part of their four-year college experience.

前面提到的内布拉斯加州参议员、米德兰学院前任校长本 · 萨斯(Ben Sasse)区分了“自由来自”和“自由去到”。在米德兰，每年教员都会对学生进行调查。学生们一次又一次地把取消课程描述为他们四年大学生活中最美好的部分。

Sasse writes:

“Adolescents put off adult responsibilities for as long as they can, sometimes by choice but more often as a result of circumstances and trends beyond their comprehension. In the face of unprecedented prosperity and freedom from convention, the generation coming of age is stuck in a hazy, extended adolescence, never allowed simply to be children, and yet also rarely nudged to be fully adult.”

萨斯写道：

“青少年尽可能地推迟成年人的责任，有时是出于自愿，但更多时候是由于他们无法理解的环境和趋势。面对前所未有的繁荣和摆脱惯例的自由，成年一代陷入了一个模糊、漫长的青春期，从未被允许单纯地成为孩子，也很少被推动成为完全的成年人。”

Outwardly, we said “college was the best four years of our lives.” But inwardly, we had no hope for the future. There was no cultural message that life could improve after graduation. Conversations about our dreams were as rare as waking up on Saturday morning without a hangover. Without faith in a better tomorrow, we embraced degeneracy and avoided our to-do lists. Our “adulting” culture prizes ephemeral happiness over eternal fulfillment — it’s a culture where kids age fast and adults mature slowly.

表面上，我们说“大学是我们生命中最美好的四年。”但在内心深处，我们对未来没有希望。没有任何文化信息表明毕业后生活会有所改善。关于我们的梦的谈话就像在周六早上醒来没有宿醉一样稀少。没有对更美好明天的信念，我们接受了堕落，避免了我们的待办事项清单。我们的“成人”文化重视短暂的幸福，而不是永恒的满足——这是一种孩子老得快，成年人成熟得慢的文化。

I hope that in the future, we’ll see meaning and responsibility as two sides of the same coin. With adulthood comes the freedom to pursue a vocation, the wealth to nurture your community, and the wisdom to raise the next generation.

我希望在未来，我们会把意义和责任看作是同一枚硬币的两面。随着成年，人们有了追求职业的自由，有了养育社区的财富，有了养育下一代的智慧。

A life well-lived demands a forward-leaning embrace of responsibility. We should drop the freedom from mindset and welcome the freedom to learn, the freedom to work, and the freedom to tackle meaningful challenges. Otherwise, coming-of-age Americans will float without direction, drifting like a log in the ocean.

一个好的生活需要一个前卫的责任的拥抱。我们应该抛弃心态上的自由，欢迎学习的自由，工作的自由，以及应对有意义挑战的自由。否则，成年的美国人就会像大海中的木头一样漂浮，没有方向。

In the end, until we can restore the innocence of childhood, appreciate the wisdom only literacy can provide, and find beauty in the wrinkles of old age, we will feed a culture of adultish children and childish adults.

最后，直到我们能够恢复童年的纯真，欣赏只有文学才能提供的智慧，并在老年的皱纹中发现美丽，我们将养育一个成年儿童和幼稚成年人的文化。