The photo that I mention several times in this picture is of a four year old kid sticking his tounge out at a camera. Look through old photos of you, I'm sure you'll find the same photo like a hundred times over.

The kid looks like what he probably is, an immature four year old. He's not concerned with what's going on in the world around him, he doesn't care that President Clinton was re-inaugurated, or that in the UK Labour ended 18 years of conservative rule in the government, or, closer to home, he didn't even realize his mother was gone. He's just a loud, annoying, snot-nosed punk of a kid, who thinks it's fun to make funny faces at cameras. Twelve years later and that kid is me, now sixteen, and even though I'm four times the age of the kid in the picture, and even though I can barely remember what exactly is going on in it, there's nothing foreign or strange about my younger self.

Not a whole lot has changed in between then and now. I've grown up, but that's mostly a physical difference. Maturity hasn't caught up with me yet, or at least I pretend it hasn't. I still laugh at potty jokes, I still watch and enjoy Spongebob, and I'm pretty sure I'm still loud and annoying. Making funny faces at cameras still makes me laugh and I still am scared to death of roller-coasters. Sure I'm more grown up in the sense that I'm smarter than I was, and more aware of my surroundings and what's happening in the world, but those are superficial differences. The base of what made that kid who he was is still the base that makes me who I am. Which I feel, in my not-so-humble opinion is a good thing.

Growing up is vastly over-rated. And for some bizarre, yet to be explained reason kids seem to want to do it. I recently listened to a conversation two freshmen had about how they weren't hanging out with the kids they used to because they were too “immature”, and while listening to them talk I couldn't help but think of how stupid they were. They're freshmen in High School, who cares about being mature? They have their whole lives to do that, pretty soon they'll have to start paying for school, and then they'll have to get a job and become productive members of society, and where's the fun in that? I know that, eventually, it has to happen. But in between now and then people should enjoy the free excuse they have to be immature.

I've had teachers ask the class if they wanted to be treated like adults or like kids, and the answer I want to give every time that gets asked is like kids. I don't answer that way because that might get me in trouble, which is something I'm mature enough to try to avoid, but so is a six year old, nobody wants to get in trouble. Being viewed as a kid is the best, people don't expect you to have much of a sense of responsibility, because you probably don't, so you don't have annoying responsibilities to nag at you. You have free reign to make immature potty jokes and can laugh guilt-free when other people make them because people don't expect any different. If people don't view you as mature you can have as much fun being immature as you want. And that's what really should matter, not diluting yourself into some false idea of needing to be mature so you can have the respect of your peers, or adults, or lord knows who else, but making yourself happy and enjoying life as much as possible. People only have at best about a century on this planet, why let those years go to waste? Why bother keeping up a semblance of maturity if no-one expects it? People need to keep childlike immaturity for as long as possible, without it they get too wrapped in themselves, or in work, or in how mature they are in comparison to other people, and when that happens people get boring.

Humour is what keeps people from going crazy. That's why shows like South Park, or Family Guy, shows my father dismisses as stupid and immature, will always get good ratings, and even if they are stupid and immature my dad has been known to laugh at them, and then change the channel once he realized he did. We need things like that to remind people of the potty humour we once thought was the funniest thing ever. Without them people get wound up so tight that if you fed them coal, they'd poo diamonds. And no-one should be that uptight. So people need to enjoy the little things, things that for whatever reason make them laugh, little bits of immaturity that are hilarious.

Unfortunately that's something many people can't seem to do. They get so wrapped up in something that they forget how to enjoy things. They start taking offense at comments made clearly in jest. They start badgering people who don't view the world quite so seriously. And they become really lame as a result. I've seen it happen, and it's always sad. The world is a pretty funny place, and it's a shame when people forget that.

Life is too short to bother with things like maturity. People need to do what makes them happy, maturity be damned. Hedonism can be a good thing. People need to make the little kid inside themselves happy. I'm glad that I can still look at that picture and say that I haven't changed that much.