Clocks and Mirrors (excerpt)

....My Dad had a bearing and countenance about himself such that no teenager would dare address him as "Homeboy" or "Playa" or "Pimp" or "G" like some young people are accustomed to greet "mature" men with these days. However, it's not just an issue of respecting elders, what I seem to observe is that men of a certain age that used to take pride in the responsibility of teaching young men respect, wisdom and all the other various life lessons of being a man, now take pride in the fact that younger men see them as a peer, a buddy, or a "homey" and would be more apt to smoke a blunt with them or drink a beer with them or hook up with some young girls with them, rather than teach them the lessons of respecting young ladies, saying no to drugs and mentoring them through the frontiers of getting an education, planning a career or starting a family.


I must say that, I have never really felt like an "adult" despite the responsibilities of high pressured careers, business ownership, home ownership or even being in a position of mentoring younger people. I think this is partly an assertion of our youth obsessed culture. Yet it is also a larger symptom of my generation’s conscious aversion to the community, family and organizational responsibilities that used to guide men and women through the maturation process.


It used to be necessary for men to "put away childish things" because they had serious commitments and responsibilities to community, family or "the Struggle". It seems nowadays that people have been taught that their only responsibility is to self fulfillment, self gratification and self satisfaction. We (I) seem to be in a constant pursuit of pleasure and self gratification rather than any other higher pursuits....