Establishing that nearly every
single famous young musician, actor and actress was a
victim of the syndrome, regardless of whether
they were from the U.S., Canada, Europe or Australia, and apparently
regardless of where within those countries they were from, meant
that the syndrome was affecting a huge area of the planet, and
possibly even the whole thing. Being from Toronto, a city which
not only is located in the area known to be affected but which
is also the birthplace and in some cases the home of some of
the affected celebrities, and being that I was born in 1976,
making me younger than many of the affected celebrities, I didn’t
really have much choice but to make the next group scrutinized
myself and the people of the right age that I knew personally.
This group’s results were the most interesting. For one
thing, despite the literally hundreds of people that I was able
to think of there wasn’t even one single exception to
the child for life rule. Myself included. The handful of affected
entertainers from Toronto were no fluke - none of the city's
young people, or at least none of the young people that I knew,
had physically matured into adulthood. But just as interesting
was the clear relationship between the year of a person’s
birth and to what degree they’re affected. In Toronto, the syndrome doesn't
make its first appearance at full strength, but
instead begins by only mildly affecting those born
sometime in the early 1970's, then progressively it
gets worse. On average, those born in 1975 are
slightly more physically mature than those born in
1976, and so on, until about 1980, at which point it
seems to level off.
I’d
now taken a look at musicians, actors and actresses, and the
people that I know personally from Toronto, and almost every
single young person had failed to physically mature into adulthood.
The situation was getting weirder by the minute. It was weird,
interesting, a little disturbing, and even kind of funny in
a sick sort of way, but
for some reason it wasn’t surprising. It seemed the more I learned about the syndrome
the more I realized that on some level I had already known it
all along. The full child for life concept was just now being
realized, but living in a world surrounded by adult-age children
for so many years hadn’t gone totally unnoticed. I guess
a person can only see so many 27 year old dental hygienists
who look like they’re in grade 11 before at least a part
of their brain realizes that something isn’t quite right.
Especially when they themselves are not an exception to the
strange new norm. Why it took the rest of my brain as long as
it did to figure it out it’s hard to say, but whatever
the reason, better late than never.
It
was around this point that I got the idea of putting out a website
on the phenomenon. Keeping quiet about something like this would
have to be a mistake. The urge to write about the situation
was being fueled by the strangeness and the gravity of the syndrome,
but it was being fueled almost as much by the strangeness of
the fact that I had never once heard even one person mention
the problem. No one on TV, no one in a newspaper or a magazine,
no one in real life. Very often people would say things which
indicated that they were aware of the problem existing in an
individual, a person I know making a comment about a girl looking
exactly the same at the age of 22 as she did when she was 14,
or a film critic remarking that a 26 year old actor didn’t
have the “heft” to play a cop, but no one had seemed
to put the entire puzzle together. No one had noticed that these
physically immature individuals were no different from just
about everyone else their age. People were seeing underdeveloped
individuals, but not seeing the pattern of underdevelopment.
Since it took me years to finally clue in to the syndrome I
can relate to those who are unaware of the problem, or at least
think they’re unaware, and since I eventually made the
jump from seeing underdeveloped individuals to seeing the pattern
I have to assume that others have as well. The problem is so
blatantly obvious to me now that it seems extremely unlikely
that there aren’t many others who have also figured the
whole thing out. For some reason, however, none of these clued
in people have decided to put out a website on the subject.
At least not that I’m aware of, anyway, and I have looked
- on the day the concept hit me and since. Maybe none of these
people see the situation as horrible enough, weird enough, or
even funny enough to warrant the effort that a website takes.
They just can’t be bothered. On the other hand I do see
the situation as horrible, weird, and funny enough to warrant
the effort, so putting out a website seemed like a good move.
This
essay will leave no doubt whatsoever that the child for life
syndrome is for real. The syndrome, essentially a failure to
complete the process of physical maturation and reach adulthood,
first began to affect those born sometime in the late 1960’s,
and progressed to the point where almost everyone is affected
who was born past 1975 in an area of the world which includes,
but is not necessarily limited to, the U.S., Canada, Europe
and Australia. This will be proven by analysing the physical
maturity of 294 of the world’s most well known actors
and actresses, and musicians, in what I‘m calling “the
celebrity comparison”. The celebrities included in the
comparison were born from 1946 - 1986, allowing younger celebrities
to be compared to older ones. In a vacuum it's difficult to
say whether or not Orlando Bloom is physically immature for
a 28 year old, but comparing him to older male celebrities back
when they were 28 years old or younger gives us perspective.
People born in areas of the world other than the ones mentioned
may also be suffering from the syndrome, but finding celebrities
from these areas that would be known to more than a very small
percentage of the people who might read this essay would probably
be impossible. Various issues involving the child for life syndrome
will also be discussed, including the aging process, and the
syndrome’s possible causes.
Whether
this website will have an impact on the child for life syndrome
is hard to say. It isn’t totally impossible that it will
ignite a world wide uproar of people outraged and panicked by
the thought of a nearly adult-free world, forcing a full scale
effort on the part of the global scientific community, who are
able to detect and then completely eliminate the cause of the
syndrome. It also isn’t totally impossible that this essay
won’t be read by more than a handful of people, everyone
else scared off by the word “syndrome” in the title.
Either way, a kid’s got to take a shot.
