This Saturday, between the time that I write this and the day it comes out, I will turn 21.
I have no earthly idea what that means.
At 21, the government will consider me a responsible adult. I will be allowed to drink, to gamble in casinos and all those other lovely activities that responsible adults are notorious for. I will be able to buy a gun, rent or lease an apartment and adopt a child. Heaven help the child.
The modern Republic of Iraq is 21 years old this year, as is Facebook and Gmail, not to mention “Shrek 2.” This means that, just like me, all of them are now also allowed to drink, gamble, rent and adopt. I’m not sure which is scarier.
The more aware I’ve become of it, the more the world seems full of 21s. There are Twenty-One Pilots. “21 Jump Street.” 21 shillings in a guinea. 21 shots in the gun salute to royalty and country leaders. The number defines games like blackjack and NASCAR racers like Ford. In math, it is the fifth semiprime (the product of exactly two prime numbers) and the sum of the first six consecutive numbers (one, two, three, four, five, six).
But 21 is more than just a number. Culturally in the United States, it is the number that signifies growing up. Of adulting and facing life. Of having things figured out and finally giving back to society rather than just taking from it. It is the time to go from boys to men and girls to women. It is the moment, wherever we like it or not, when we can never truly be children again. The excuses are gone… and the safety nets too.
Philosophically, 21 can have a lot of oddly contradictory meanings. On one hand, it symbolizes completion and perfection, the product of unified completeness (three) as well as God’s holy number (seven). At the same time, it can represent sin and rebellion, as seen in 2 Timothy 3, listing the 21 sins that will plague humanity in the last days. “People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power.”
They are uncomfortably familiar.
For many young people in the United States, a 21st birthday is seen as a time of reckless celebration. A day to throw caution to the wind and enjoy the wilder side of life before the monotony of adulthood sets in. It is the big-bang finale to a life without repercussions. But what if I don’t see it that way? What if, in my strange, semi-obsessive way, I see something deeper than that?
This Saturday, as I enter into this strange, huge concept of a number, I will certainly be celebrating as well. I will meet a friend for coffee, grab dinner with classmates and laugh about the absurdity of becoming an adult. But I will also be thinking about shillings. And salutes. Math problems and philosophical numerology. I will hold the reality of depravity in one hand and the hope of perfection in another. I will watch as Facebook announces I share its age and smile at Gmails from people I haven’t seen in years. I will marvel at choices that were barred to me only 24 hours before and consider how I can begin giving back to the world I will one day pass down to the child I am now old enough to adopt.
And most of all, I will recognize the blessing of living to 21 years old in the bizarre, interconnected and inexplicably human world of the 21st century.
Photo courtesy of Unsplash.
