I can only smile when I think about the admission made by Maria Seriego (see my previous post) and this recent comment made on this blog by Sameer Borate:

Just read your Manifesto today. I’ve been suffering from Adultitis for the past 6 years (I’am 32 now). The symptoms had already started when I was 25. The surprising thing is that I knew that I was slowly morphing into some stupid, dumb adult but was unable to do nothing. I’am a software developer and still remember the days when writing software was fun; working in Assembly or optimizing a ‘C’ program would give a high that most people would only experience while having sex or smoking (I’ve never smoked so I’ve really no idea what it feels like). But now it’s become a routine job for me. Now I get as much joy in programming as I would get washing my clothes. Your Manifesto was a kind of a waking-up call to me.
Lets just hope I will be able to implement the eight steps. Thanks!

I am smiling, because I have a funny image (more of a daydream, really) in my head of an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show in which all of these people from all over the world publicly "come out of the closet." Hundreds of people in the audience represent the thousands (heck, let’s make it millions) of those who are ready to admit that they have Adultitis. I’m sitting on a couch next to Oprah. The couch is noticeably still thanks to the absence of Tom Cruise jumping wildly upon it. This topic is so big that Oprah has called in Dr. Phil, who turns out to be even nicer than I had imagined. Oprah announces that everyone in the audience gets a free copy of my book, which for some reason, causes the crowd to explode in joyful exuberance. And then she announces that she’s going to put it on her book club list, which cause ME to explode in joyful exuberance. Most importantly, the show airs everywhere and millions of people are inspired to take the steps necessary to escape adulthood and start living life the way God intended. With faith, hope, and love. And Dairy Queen ice cream cake for all.

A guy can dream, right? 

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I’m happy to report that my manifesto is circulating its way through the blogosphere. Pretty cool to see that this whole "Escape Adulthood" thing is striking a nerve. My favorite mention comes from blogger Maria Sariego, who writes:

I found out Sunday that I have advanced adultitis…

Oh yeah … and then there’s taking the car to inspection … and getting the fireplace flu and dryer vents cleaned (which we now have to do by Oct., per the new neighborhood association rules) … and filling out the U.S. American Community Census Survey (for which I was lucky enough to be picked at random, but am required by law to fill out) … or the yearly mammogram … or the twice-a-year dentist visit (which I thought was only going to be for a cleaning, but now also needs to deal with the tooth I chipped last week) … or the big annual FAFSA extravaganza ( … if you don’t have college-age children, you don’t know what you’re missing there) … or making sure to renew the dogs’ town licenses every year (which of course requires vet visits to keep the shots up to date) … and so on, and so on. I mean, have you noticed how much life-administration stuff one has to deal with as an adult? Was this all spelled out in the fine print somewhere in our ‘Welcome to Adulthood’ manual?

And that, my friends, is what I’m talkin’ about. And it’s why I’m consistently trying to chip away at the stuff that conspires to keeps me squarely in ‘adult’ mode so much of the time ( … why does this suddenly brings up images of a guy trying to bail out a sinking boat with a little tin cup, I ask you?)

Really, being an ‘adult’ all these years has served me well in many ways, but Sunday when I read about adultitis in Jason’s little manifesto I felt like one of those people whose ‘affliction’ is finally given a name. It doesn’t change things and it doesn’t make it curable, necessarily, but now at least they know they’re not just going crazy. If it has a name then there’s at least ONE other soul out there suffering with you. Anyone?

Make it a point to read Maria’s full post. She shares some really fun anecdotes from her own childhood, including details from her transition from Spain to America when she was eight years old.  It’s a fascinating reminder to me that even though everyone in this world has had such diverse childhood experiences, there are certain things that are absolutely universal. Thanks Maria, for the mention. And for sharing.

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Have you ever read something that immediately makes you feel sick to your stomach? This is how I feel right now after having read the article entitiled ‘Cramming For Kindergarten,’ featured recently on CBSnews.com. I think the title gives you an idea of what road I am going down. Yet another example of adults, and in this case parents passing on their Adultitis to their little ones. Tragic! The article talks about parents who have chosen to seek out tutors for their pre-schoolers, in order to help them ‘be ready’ for the academic demands of Kindergarten.

Christine Califano, one of the parents shares:

"It wasn’t that she (her four-year-old daughter Haley) had any kind of limitations. It was that she really wasn’t interested, and she needed to be motivated a little more. It is unfortunate that you have to do all this preparation for kindergarten, but you really do."

Really? Do you? …Why? How many ‘motivated’ four-year-olds have you seen lately? Not every child wants to read at age four or even shows interest in letters, numbers or writing this early. Sure, Haley may have a little catching up to do with her ABC’s when school starts, but I would like to see if she needs a tutor to help her run on the playground or imagine in the house area or dig a tunnel in the sand table or laugh with a friend?

One may argue that this parents cannot be faulted for wanting what is best for her child. I would argue that the best thing for a preschooler to do, in order to ‘be ready’ for school is to BE A KID.

The homework looks like this: catch bugs, sneak some cookie dough from the bowl, jump in the biggest puddle you can find with your ‘good’ clothes on, play hide-and-seek and scream when someone finds you, let a dog lick your face until you can’t stop laughing, hide out in a tent made of blankets and couch cushions, master the art of the Kool-aid and milk mustache, make play-do snakes, grow a bubble beard in the bath, loose your way in a wild story, get goose-bumps when your parents kiss you good-night, get muddy, fly a kite, enjoy the scratchy sound of your training wheels, finger-paint, play ‘house’, and my personal favorite - swing!

Heck, I’m trying my hardest to get back to this life now. The creativity, the innovation, the imagination, the perspective– so pure and innocent. It is a true tragedy to see this stolen from the little ones who teach us so much about life.

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I got a chance to dust off the ol’ illustration skills while working on this past week’s strips. Of course, I’m always in drawing mode, but it’s been awhile since I’ve actually done some more photo realistic renderings. In a few weeks, you’ll be treated to another epic adventure in which Kim & Jason climb into their trusty cardboard box and fly off to some uncharted territories (at least for them.)

What strikes me is how different technology has made things since I was last in school a little over five years ago. In the old days, illustrators and cartoonists would have bulging files bursting with photo references. Advertisements and portraits ripped from old magazines, pages depicting people, clothes, cars, and furniture torn from discarded catalogs. A plethora of subject matter was saved and safeguarded just in case a project called for an accurate rendition of a llama.

The computer (and Google specifically) is one area where technology has actually made good on it’s promise to eliminate paper. Thanks to the Google Image Search, my image morgue is deceased and buried. When I need to reference what a goose looks like when it’s flying, I let my fingers do the walking, and before long, I’ve found the perfect image. Kim often jokes that she’s never sure what she’ll find on my computer screen when she walks into my office. Just in the last few weeks, an unsuspecting observer might have seen not only images of geese in flight, but also a close-up of Mount Rushmore, a diagram of Stonehenge, and various views of the Great Wall of China.

What a fun job indeed to spend an hour trying to get Abraham Lincoln’s nose just right.

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This morning as I was leaving church, I remembered that the priest had mentioned there would be cement trucks outside getting ready to pour the new sidewalks. As I was walking to my car, I noticed an older man ‘park’ himself about a foot from the area that would soon be freshly poured concrete. He looked on with great anticipation, as if it was 9:15 pm on the 4th of July. When I drove past in my car, I noticed a middle-aged man, holding his three-year-old, walking back towards the cement show, from his car. He must’ve thought they could just walk past without stopping, but the three-year-old had a different idea. Glancing over towards the original curious senior, I noticed there were now about ten other seniors, also stationed for the upcoming show…and all the while my car continued to drive past them. What has happened to my childlike curiosity? As I drove home I thought about how cool it would’ve been to see that gooey gray cement plop into the frames on the ground. Almost as if on autopilot, my car led me home to write this post.

Living with curiosity is a gift…a gift that many of us leave dusty and faded in childhood. Try to rediscover this gift today. The joy and excitement that it brings is beyond words.

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It’s amazing to me. At one time or another in our lives, we’ve all been experts at playing. I’d even go so far as to say that a vast majority of us were playaholics.

And yet, how is it possible that so many of us can grow up and completely forget how to play? Is it possible for a dentist to retire and then forget how to brush his teeth? Or for a kindergarten teacher to forget the alphabet? Of all of the secrets from childhood that we once knew so well but have since forgotten, play might be the one disregarded trait that befuddles me the most.

I spend a lot of time encouraging busy, overworked moms to free up some time for bona fide episodes of frivolity. But guys are far from perfect in this area. They’re pretty good at squeezing in Monday Night Football and a game of backyard bocce, but as an article from Great Britain’s Times Online notes, they are also well-known for "trudging round resorts with personal organisers and mobile phones, making regular calls to the office."

Hooray to the German Holiday Academy for taking up the daunting task of (re)teaching grown-ups how to play. Special courses have been set up in five German cities to help guys become better playaholics:

The sessions cost £200 and provide expert instruction on “holiday skills” from dressing casually to dancing, applying a partner’s sun lotion to building sandcastles with the children.

The instructors of the German Holiday Academy have been inundated with applications. Wives are sending along husbands who have grown accustomed to trudging round resorts with personal organisers and mobile phones, making regular calls to the office.

The instructors are skilled in persuading tired adults to scrabble in sand with a bucket and spade, and they jazz it all up with a little meaningless jargon. Sandcastle building comes under the description “social integration”.

In Düsseldorf, where the academy has set up a huge sandpit next to the Holiday Inn business centre, Axel Zundler, one of the instructors, explained his philosophy.

“Releasing the inner child is heartily encouraged,” he said. “It is amazing how quickly grown men and women revert back to childlike behaviour once their shoes and socks have come off and they feel the sand between their toes.”

As frustrated as I get with the propensity of adults to forget the art (and importance) of play, I am relieved to hear that rehabilitation is as simple as a little sand between one’s toes. So, while there is still a bit of summer left, grab a friend, find a beach – even an open grass field will do – and give your feet a treat. Just leave the cell phone and PDA at home.

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A big, fat, juicy thank you to everyone who voted for my manifesto at ChangeThis.com. The happy news I have to report is that it garnered enough interest to be published on their web site. Basically, it is a summary of my book, an overview of why and how to escape this thing called "adulthood." The manifesto itself is free to download, and you can even e-mail it to your friends to pass along. If you really, really like it, a more in-depth version was printed on dead trees in book format.

Read the manifesto. Spread the word. And cure Adultitis.

Thank you and good night.

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In my book I mention the idea that the things we dreamed about being when we were kids are clues. Clues to what, you may ask? Clues to what you’re supposed to be doing with your life. I was fascinated with all things Star Wars as a young tyke. I dreamed of being just like George Lucas. While I don’t live in California and am not secretly involved in writing Episodes 7, 8, and 9, I do spend a good portion of my time developing characters, telling stories, and entertaining people. (And fortunately, my special effects budget is several million dollars lower than that of Mr. Lucas.)

My friend Chris pointed me to an article by Parker J. Palmer, who also talks about these clues from childhood. As a young boy, Mr. Palmer was very fascinated with airplanes. He spent hours and hours writing and illustrating little books about aviation. He describes the epiphany of discovering the meaning behind his early passions:

I had always thought that the meaning of this paperwork was obvious: fascinated with flight, I wanted to be a pilot, or at least an aeronautical engineer. But recently, when I found a couple of these literary artifacts in an old cardboard box, I suddenly saw the truth, and it was more obvious than I had imagined. I didn’t want to be a pilot or an aeronautical engineer or anything else related to aviation. I wanted to be an author, to make books — a task I have been attempting from the third grade to this very moment.

From the beginning, our lives lay down clues to selfhood and vocation, though the clues may be hard to decode. But trying to interpret them is profoundly worthwhile — especially when we are in our twenties or thirties or forties, feeling profoundly lost, having wandered, or been dragged, far away from our birthright gifts. 

Those clues are helpful in counteracting the conventional concept of vocation, which insists that our lives must be driven by “oughts.” As noble as that may sound, we do not find our callings by conforming ourselves to some abstract moral code. We find our callings by claiming authentic selfhood, by being who we are, by dwelling in the world as Zusya rather than straining to be Moses. The deepest vocational question is not “What ought I to do with my life?” It is the more elemental and demanding “Who am I? What is my nature?”

If you are feeling a bit lost in life, wondering if you’re on the right path, you may want to look back on your childhood. What were the things that made you jump out of bed in the morning? The things that so enthralled you that the only thing that could pull you from your concentrated passion were several (increasingly impatient) announcements from Mom that lunch was ready. Take some time to investigate the clues. It’ll be worth your while.

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Do kids these days really get to have a childhood? Having worked in a school, I have heard first-hand the debates between schools and parents about the amount of homework children receive. I’m all for working hard and succeeding in school but why do kids have to then go home and work more? Even most adults only work eight hours a day. This really bothers me. Not to mention the high pressured high schools. These students are not even nineteen years old and they have full-blown Adultitis. Anand Vaishnav from The Boston Globe recently wrote an article entitled: ‘Suburban high schools try to ease up on teen stress.’ It is refreshing to hear that some people are noticing that this is a problem.

‘Society as a whole is creating a stressful environment,” said Rena P. Mirkin, principal of Wellesley High. ”It’s not ‘Are you achieving?’ It’s ‘Are you achieving with five honors courses, eight clubs, two sports, and three community service activities?’

Sadly, this is not just a problem for high schoolers in prep schools. I’ve seen this problem with five and six year olds in my own kindergarten classroom. Karate on Mondays, dance on Tuesdays, swimming lessons on Wednesdays, Thursday they have a friend over for a “play date” (if they’re lucky enough to be able to convince their parents to let them skip t-ball). This is insane. When do kids get to just hang out in the backyard and play? How in the world can their imaginations and creativity develop if they are always in a structured environment? What do you think is worse – parents of small children who sign their kids up for whatever their kids may think they NEED to be a part of? (As if kids know what’s best for themselves!)…or parents who sit passivly watching their high schoolers join every team, club, and/or group, never leaving them time to explore possible interests that may impact their career choices and ultimately their happiness in adulthood? (As if high schoolers know what’s best for themselves!) Both sets of parents are blinded by their own Adultitis. They have such an extreme case themselves, they do not see how it is rubbing off on their children. This is wrong…and very very sad. Be careful – Adultitis is contagious, especially among family members.

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Why not? No matter how "old" you get, you’re still and always will be the same kid who "climbed trees and chased around the yard." Evelyn Bence offers up an interesting devotional about how the age of your body really has nothing to do with the age of your spirit.

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No one is safe from Adultitis. Not even the American entertainment company that was built on, and is synonymous with, the carefree and hope-filled spirit of childhood. An essay on SaveDisney.com sheds some light on Walt Disney and his original vision for his movies and his company:

"I do not make films primarily for children. I make them for the child in all of us, whether he be six or sixty…In my work I try to reach and speak to that innocence, showing it the fun and joy of living; showing it that laughter is healthy; showing it that the human species, although happily ridiculous at times, is still reaching for the stars…Too many people grow up. That’s the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up. They forget. They don’t remember what it’s like to be 12 years old."

"Why do we have to grow up? I know more adults who have the children’s approach to life. They’re people who don’t give a hang what the Joneses do. You see them at Disneyland every time you go there. They are not afraid to be delighted with simple pleasures, and they have a degree of contentment with what life has brought - sometimes it isn’t much either."

The essay, by Merlin Jones, reveals Disney’s secret to success, a secret that led to amazing financial abundance.

Disney Legend Ward Kimball observed, "If you want to know the real secret of Walt’s success, it’s that he never tried to make money. He was always trying to make something that he could have fun with or be proud of. He told me once, ‘I plow back everything I make into the company. I look at it this way: If I can’t use the money now, if I can’t have fun with it, I’m not going to be able to take it with me.’ That’s the way he talked. That’s the way he felt."

Clearly, Disney’s formula worked. Unfortunately, the current Disney leadership team has strayed wildly from the path that Walt blazed:

In today’s Disney Company, the Vision is being guided by clear-thinking strategic planners, marketers, statisticians, politicians, social engineers, accountants, and bankers… with the creatives as mere hired help.

Where once Spirits of Youth — animators, artists, storytellers, Imagineers, designers and futurists — contributed the guiding light to Disney’s name and image, providing the very essence of the public perception of the company — now their laugher has grown silent, quashed by the practical crunching of numbers and the sensible questions of predetermined surveys (if not the ringing of a cash register). Innovation has been replaced by templates, imagination by projections, inspiration by management structure.

"We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make a statement. To make money is our only objective." —Michael Eisner

It’s no surprise that Disney (the company) continues to struggle on the financial side, while a company like Pixar (which has recently terminated their affiliation with Disney) keeps rolling out box office hits. Disney has Adultitis. Pixar doesn’t (yet). Hopefully they can pull things together and get back to the original vision held so strongly by Walt Disney. There is no question that his worldview led to magical results. As Disney himself said,

"The American child is a highly intelligent human being - characteristically sensitive, humorous, open-minded, eager to learn, and has a strong sense of excitement, energy and healthy curiosity about the world in which he lives. Lucky indeed is the grownup who manages to carry these same characteristics over into his adult life. It usually makes for a happy and successful individual."

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

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I’ll trade you another chance to win a t-shirt for your honest opinion on our new t-shirt line. Based on the input from readers, our first shirt is already in production, and it features a certain well-known skunk. Now we’re turning our attention to the runner-up design, but we’re not sure what color to print it in. So…what do you think?

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