Get Incensed

“Your face could freeze like that …”

I think I’m in the wrong business.

If it’s not obvious enough from the royalty checks I get every month, the issue becomes even clearer whenever I read an article about all the weird stuff people get paid to do research about.

In a recent article entitled, Adults Aren’t Growing Up, evolutionary psychiatrist Bruce Charlton claims “grown-ups today are more immature than ever.”

Well, duh!

Charlton says that “among scientists, the phenomenon is called psychological neoteny.”

Oh yeah, Bruce? I know I am but what are you? (I guess I told him!)

For anyone who really thinks it’s surprising adults today are more immature, I’ve got two words for you: Inter. Net.

We can Photoshop pictures instead of just drawing on a mustache or blacking out someone’s teeth; we can Google terms like “atomic wedgie” and immediately get over 3000 pictures of guys with underwear up around their ears; and, if you just happen to trip and take a nose dive while bringing out your kid’s birthday cake, it will inevitably be captured on somebody’s cell phone camera and posted on YouTube.

And let’s not forget the influence of video games where you can spend hours battling aliens, dunking over Shaquille O’Neal and making Gina Lynn do whatever you want her to.

My grandfather escaped from Poland and came to America when he was 17 years old. I can’t even fathom the level of maturity it took to pull that off. To be fair, if he’d been able to surf for Internet porn, there’s a good chance I’d have grown up in Warsaw.

We’ve also grown up in an age of increased prosperity where society has the time and means to be obsequiously over-protective of kids. Kids don’t grow up now because they don’t have to. You’ve got bicycle helmet laws, planned play dates and To Catch A Predator.

When I was a kid, it was a real test of wits to avoid getting caught alone with Uncle Eric during family get-togethers.

And, if your mom went shopping and left you in the car in 85 degree heat, well… you’d better be able to figure out how to unlock the car door and let a little air in.

It was Darwinism in action. Somehow, an entire generation managed to grow up, get jobs and vote Republican. (Okay, so maybe repeated heatstroke can cause minor brain damage …)

All I’m saying is, you don’t need a study to say that people don’t want to get old.

But if you’re handing out money for research … I call first dibs.

research, getting old, maturity, immaturity, Bruce Charlton, To Catch a Predator, Jerry Lewis,