Taking my little brother to school today morning, I found it funny that I was unsure whether to identify with the kids in the yard – my little brother’s friends and the others – or with the teachers there, who I then realized, were pretty much the same physical age as me. And in that moment, I greatly enjoyed allowing myself to stick with roles of the kids, and thinking that if those teachers were not on duty, they could join us, too.

Also, even before that, as we entered the yard, I first saw the other kids in roles, in which I saw other pupils, when I was in comprehensive school myself. But then, I was not a pupil anymore now. I was something everybody else in the yard probably considered an adult. I seemed to have power over the kids, some sort of a strange respect, though it seemed to me I was not at all sure they were not wiser than me, in all their living in the moment.

Kids assume being subordinate to adults, since in practical life, adults often can handle things better. (Too bad if the adults a kid identifies with are not healthy.) But kids are better at being happy and unassuming, only occasionally being interrupted by their parents or by other adults. To grow up successfully is to remain without worry, although life around you becomes more challenging, and possibly more boring and more scary?

To be an adult is to stand straight up and not shiver when others talk to you, and to show who you are – convincing other adults you are something “more” than a kid now. This is how you get things that adults appreciate.