Why Are the 20 Somethings Taking So Long to Grow Up?

The REAL question(s) is:

WHY r there only opportunities for people who have kids and NO opportunities for people without?

WHY are these jobs not paying enough/ won't hire u cuz u're "out of work too long" don't have a college degree cuz college COSTS TOO MUCH "overqualified" or "underqualified"/won't give u benefits, a raise, and/or promotion but work u like a slave?

WHY are these real estate companies charging over $500 to live in a one bedroom/studio?!?

I started reading this article; whereas, after page one, it reminded me of the typical New York Times over analysis stories that are often published in the magazine for weekend readers of the Sunday edition. It's for the types who in their weekend repose often like to intellectually masturbate themselves, so as to evade real life quandaries and their uptight dispositions about it all. So they sit there with their so-called liberal, middle class, educated lifestyles, etc., trying to make sense of it all by virtualizing a seeming place of "normalcy" and justification.

Don't get me wrong, as I still appreciate the NY Times in many other ways, but it can often get to be too much pontification and much ado about tireless semantics, which masks for insecurity and the denial of life's most unfathomable aspects to living. Indeed, there are some things in life that even a doctorate degree and an "education" cannot explain away. Perhaps that's upsetting for some people.

Anyway, I think this article seems to talk a lot about so called adulthood issue and maturation, but in truth it's author seems frustrated and perhaps insecure about changes in social lifestyles. Briefly, the author acknowledges some quandaries to the observation:

Some never achieve all five milestones, including those who are single or childless by choice, or unable to marry even if they wanted to because they’re gay. Others reach the milestones completely out of order, advancing professionally before committing to a monogamous relationship, having children young and marrying later, leaving school to go to work and returning to school long after becoming financially secure.

And then there are a few other explanations, musings and perplexed statements which make no real sense to anyone who truly embraces "the facts of life." For someone who lives in the real world, such as myself, it becomes unbearable to read through all this silly angst that is presented in this article.

Indeed, I studied sociology and anthropology myself, but I think I tossed out this fundamental, traditional way of thinking years ago. Sure, there are many people who still think this way, in terms of traditional goals and passages of life and so on. In some regards, its still practical for many people. But, does it really surprise this writer, and many of the NY Times readers, that there are thousands upon thousands of people out there in the world who have long since abandoned such conventional lifesyles and ways to approaching life and living? Frankly, once you learn to toss out the rules and wing it, you seldom ever look back and think twice about it. Life becomes an open and great adventure.

There are popular musicals from the near past of contemporary Broadway/Off Broadway and the Cinema; which includes productions like Rent, Avenue Q and Moulin Rouge!, all of which portray contemporary American life beyond the iconic Greenwich Village and the Bohemianism of the 1960's. Indeed, Rent is to many individuals of Generation X, as the musical Hair was to the baby boomers or those who grew up in the 1960s. Today's bohemians are not limited to the gentrified "Village" of New York or other popular urban enclaves... they are everywhere, including the suburbs, the television and on the internet. Indeed, the counter-culture is now very much a part of the mainstream culture.

Yet, it should not be a surprise that this popular counter-cultural tradition has roots in the historic Bohemian movement. Rent is actually based on Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème. The movie, Moulin Rouge!, a romantic musical film that is directed, produced, and co-written by Baz Luhrmann, is supposedly based on the Orphean myth and on Giuseppe Verdi's opera, La Traviata.

So, again, this is not simply a marginal movement anymore, as there are countless people today who are living this so-called "alternative lifestyles." Although it may shock and awe some of you, not all of us who are living in this "bohemian rhapsody" are gay/homosexual, or even necessarily wear a "label" as their personal modifier or "raison d'être."