Monday, April 20, 2009

Norm:Individual VS Society-Ritual

Eighteen
Every birthday you get a party, cake and even some good gifts to get you through the next year. Turning eighteen has all of that but the added bonus of becoming an adult to the rest of the world. How is it possible that the day before you were this “child” that didn’t know any better but now you were responsible for your actions and if not you would get in trouble with the law. Was there a magical brain surgery at the stroke of twelve that made you think responsibly and cautiously? Though I have not turned eighteen yet, I will be. And I have created the ritual I will do the day I turn eighteen. I would do everything that I wasn’t able to do when I was seventeen the day before. I would go to a liquor store and buy a lottery ticket and a scratcher. I would register to vote. I would go to a tattoo parlor in Los Angeles and pick out a tattoo, I wouldn’t get a real one but I would get the Henna version. I would have my birthday party in Los Angeles. After the cake and during presents, I will scratch the ticket and if I win or don’t, I will go back to the liquor store. I would buy a pack of cigarettes even though I won’t smoke one. I would stay up past the old curfew society had enforced on me which was 10: 30 pm but make sure that cops were around. To show them that I was the legal age limit because I certainly don’t look it. And go home and thank god that I’m not a guy cause registering to be in selected service in case of a draft happened would have been a major downer on my day of becoming an adult. I would now be a productive member of society.

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