Adulthood

It is a child's consciousness which is concerned with getting needs met through others.

Needs as relational material are a feature of dependency.

We all grow up with needs and with the impetus to get them met by those around us.

When our needs are met by competent loving adult caregivers, we mature into adulthood and understand that we are responsible for our needs. We take to the task like a teenager with the new ability to drive. We gobble responsibility because it tastes like freedom—we are eager to fulfill our own desires.

Adulthood, individuality, sovereignty, means that it is nobody else's JOB to help us, nurture us, nourish us, or tend us. They do not need to validate us, witness our expression, hold space for our experience, resolve conflict, touch us, fuck us, feed us.

Maybe it seems depressing, but it is in fact the premise for experiencing real generosity, love, and devotion from another adult. Real love takes empowered action, loving of free will, loving as a positive choice of something sacred to do with this moment, when I could do anything at all.

Interdependence rests on a foundation of sovereign individuality. Devoted service doesn't need to be coerced or manipulated.

Sovereign individuality does not mean I do it all alone. It means that I never extort help on the premise of my suffering, I never coerce the participation of other individuals via emotional manipulation or any other form of coercion.

I don't manipulate because it's unnecessary, a violation of the other's consent and boundaries, and I deserve to receive generosity. I deserve enthusiastic opt-in from someone who genuinely loves me, the way I serve them, and the practice of serving me. I deserve the love that comes from people who can think of no better way to spend that time than by loving me.

Those of us who received incompetent or partially competent care from adult caregivers in the time when we were truly dependent have a road of grief and learning to get ourselves to adulthood.

It is unfair that we did not receive support from others to become adults, and that unfairness does not make achieving adulthood any less of our responsibility. This is Grief Gate 2: What I Expected and Did Not Receive. Our nervous systems have an innate expectation that our needs (including our emotional needs) will be tended by competent loving caregivers who have the time and resources required to offer us exquisite care. Modern life is built with disregard for almost every single thing this means. This is existential grief. We MUST feel and own it to cease accusing others, to end our demands and enter the realm where interdependence is possible.

With full responsibility for all I experience, with a functional baseline of emotional nourishment, I am an adult. I am a force of peace and harmony, I feel and express my emotions thoroughly and appropriately, claiming that the energy, sensation, and narrative is for me.

I am in a default of reserving emotional intensity which allows me to be responsive (able to respond, aka responsible) rather than reactive even while feeling intense emotions. Reserve is easy and natural because I have so many beautiful places to bring my expression where I am guaranteed the holding and witnessing I deserve. I don't need to demand the witnessing of whoever is around, or whoever is moved by my distress, or whoever the narrative says this emotion is about. I am in connection with many beings who welcome all of what is on my heart, exactly as they are available to do so. When I want company in my emotional expression, I reserve it for them.

When I am in a moment of emotional intensity, I hold it in my body and feel it as raw sensation, and I keep the narrative part of my mind on the evolving events. I use my concentration to understand what is happening for the other person and how I might respond to de-escalate the situation and establish harmony. I don’t panic about my own emotional intensity, I simply feel it and keep it as mine, keep it from running the interaction with the other person.

With full responsibility for all I require, with a functional baseline of material nourishment, I am an adult. I have time, energy, and attention in excess of what is required to keep the maintenance maintaining. The maintenance maintains easily, and I'm left with the questions "how will I spend my time? how would I most like to pass the hours? where would I like to place my attention? what are the most compelling actions I'd like to take?"

In adulthood, I acquire dependents and enact vastly networked interdependency.

My functional baseline does depend on some iteration of community interactions, with the sovereignty of interdependence and the sustainability of redundancy.

In adulthood, I choose to have children or get pets or plants. In adulthood I work as part of a team or a system, I serve some element of society, I serve my friends socially. I serve my family habitually, tend my living space such that it is welcoming to me and to guests. Nourishment and safety is a subconscious concern, effortlessly established and habitually handled, and my conscious concern is for creation, play, pleasure, art, and service.

Adulthood is a phase when I focus on distributing my resources into my community, into the world.

Childhood is a phase when I am concerned with what the world can give to me.