Defining rites of passage

[jay]

Given a debate in the hallways at work today with hopeforyou, over someone's celebration this evening ... I just don't see how celebrating the onset of an icky, unpleasant bodily function that causes half the population to be cranky and require chocolate and paper products one out of every four weeks is a rite of passage, other than as an affliction. Might as well design a ritual to celebrate, say, acne as the door to adolescence.

In this culture, IMO the things which most clearly delineate children from adults are gaining independent mobility and finances. So I think that a first paid outside job and gaining a driver's license are the true rites of passage in the US, both usually happening around age 15-16.

Comments

[tshuma]

You have a way of phrasing things in matter-of-fact language that comes across as most insulting, superciliious, and provocative. It makes me wonder what your motive is... Are you really writing in this fashion because you want to understand, or are you just looking to cause the kind of reaction that you've so richly reaped in with this entry? Is it really just thoughtless language, or is it deliberately provocative? I don't know you well enough to have formed an opinion yet, but it does make me wonder.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Not to speak out of turn, but the way Brian phrased this, and especially his replies, sounded like the way he gets when he's stressed and on the verge of depression/low self-esteem triggers.

He's never especially good at the "live and let live" way of phrasing things, though.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

It was neither... it was capturing my side of an unresolved argument I'd been having with hopeforyou in the hallway on a Friday afternoon at work. It was neither intended to poke random others to react, nor an attempt to understand (I'd already had that dialogue with Jen), more of a simple statement of opinion in my journal.