Why am I becoming a boy as I'm growing older?

I've heard the theory that when males age they simply become boys with better toys, and once upon a time I scoffed. Yet here I am, 27, unarguably a man now (scary), and I spend a majority of my fun money on video games, books, comics, and computers. I have much better toys than I ever did before. Am I a man or a boy?

Obviously "boys with better toys" is intended to be a fairly derogatory term, commenting on how these so called men never seem to mature and spend money on ridiculous things. But I'm not a boy in that regard. I have a house, I pay all my bills on time, I actually make money (though not very much at this current time); I'm not needlessly and wantonly spending money on toys, they are my well deserved rewards. So I am a boy, if by boy you mean male with toys. And considering that I do enjoy my toys, I am then a very happy boy.

There is a theory in an eastern philosophy, Daoism I'm fairly certain, that as we grow old we lose the nature of a child, and that in some ways that is a bad thing. Children are in many (ok, most, sheesh) ways obnoxious, self absorbed little tyrants; however, children maintain an ability to find wonder and simple joys in life that most adults lose long before they've even made it to being a grownup.

To steal an excelent example from Professor Fox, think of the child who gets a great fancy toy christmas morning and spends the rest of the day playing with the box the toy came in. When was the last time you looked at something as simple as the box something you bought came in and enjoyed it more than your new toy? To a Daoist, maintaining or regaining the ability to enjoy the simplest things is very important. Not that I'm a Daoist, but I'm perfectly happy stealing good ideas from whatever religions I want. As such, I try to look at the world, and what I loved as a kid, with the same wonder I once had.

Though I'm not exactly enjoying the packgaging as much as I used to, when I say I'm a boy with great toys, I mean that I am a boy with toys who (I think) enjoys them far more than your average boy. I may not be perfect (no one is), but I'll be damned if I'm not going to keep trying. Maybe someday, I'll buy the latest game console, and then spend six hours figuring out how to turn the box into a way to hold all my games in it. That sounds about right.