Never Never Neverland

When I was young, I always thought that once I reached a certain age, I would instantly become 'an adult.' To my little, Asian brain, maturity and adulthood were things that instantly happened after one passed a certain age, sort of like spontaneous evolution or divine conception. The idea that we 'grow' towards a certain point and that stages, in fact, were mutable and somewhat fuzzy had not yet occurred to me. Instead, I just believed that when I approached the age of 18, I would instantly wake up and know everything I was supposed to do and develop the capabilities that adults had, like paying taxes and drinking champagne like an Englishman.

I now pay other people to do my taxes and drink champagne like an American.

By the age of 10, I had sufficient real-world experience to denote the entire concept of 'maturity' as 'crap.' It might have been my pre-teen emo hormone concentrations shooting up to unprecedented levels, but when one becomes aware of adults and the dumb things they do (extramarital affairs, bad financial decisions, really bad fashion decisions, etc), one tends to become somewhat cynical. Aware that I was traveling down this path of darkness (I had read way too many fantasy books at this point), I decided to decry maturity as simply 'a concept with no foundational basis and incorrectly assumes the proper course of action.' It was during this time, with my tarnished image of adulthood, that I began to conceive of a list of things adults should embody (which would later grow to my concepts of moralism and the like).

The idea that we progress in small incremental steps never really occurred to me as something I underwent, but rather something I observed in other people. Like a kid who picks himself up off the ground after skinning his knee for the umpteenth time, or the girl who cries incessantly at dating the quarterback who's banging just about everyone in the school, people take their punches, roll, and step up. Was this, then, 'personal growth?' The gain we received from experiential knowledge, as simple as a child knowing that 'if fire is hot, if hot things hurt, I should not touch fire,' that is what defined growth? It occurred to me that it was somewhat counterintuitive to think of life (and not just human life, but all forms of 'progress') in 'stages' when it was actually a vast continuum from point A to point B.

So what is adulthood? Maturity? Do we simply grow by steps and are suddenly proclaimed mature after certain qualities have been embodied, or are we never actually 'mature' and only approach the limit of it all?

(And why should I care?)

The definition of maturity differs between people, but generally appears as a list of characteristics one believes should be embodied within a 'mature' entity. Generally, they include skills and things like 'being able to deal with emotions in ways that don't detriment oneself and others,' 'being able to communicate,' 'being socially adept,' and so forth but can also include things such as 'altruism,' 'understanding,' and 'compassion.' It should be noticed that much of the colloquial general definition of maturity is not centered among the 'mature' person, but among the people around him or her. As such, we can interpret maturity as a rough approximation of 'social awareness' as a whole.

However, it's odd to think about it like this. Instead of being mature for ourselves, we are mature for the sake of others; instead, for example, of considering others because it is 'the right thing to do' (notably using a different logical track than 'we should be mature' as the sole reason), we do it because it allows us to be called 'mature.' By according a status to such actions, we do make it more attractive and thus, more likely for people to do but we also remove the reasoning as to why we do it in the first place. This inverted reasoning (we do things to be mature, not becoming mature by doing such things) leads to a great deal of deception; fundamentally, it leads to problems.

If the reasoning isn't present intrinsically that we should do good things because they are the 'right things' to do., then we simply won't do the right things in situations where they won't be recognized. We see this present in the deepest motivations of people, mainly when emotions suddenly become concerned, leading to no sense of chivalry but instead to things like selfishness coming out, and in situation where there's alcohol. When true personalities come out, those who are 'consciously mature' suddenly revert to their normal 'immature' selves, and then all sorts of awkward turtles are suddenly birthed into the world. My point is people shouldn't push themselves to 'become' mature; instead, they should understand it from a more primal, fundamental level of altruism.

It is entirely possible, though, that people won't ever 'become mature' in this sense because people sometimes never do reach the point where they understand why they should help others. However, in some ways, maybe it is better if people remain their honest selves, selfishness and all, and not simply become people they are not ready to be solely because they want to be 'mature.' At least in that way, people won't lose too much of themselves in confusion and life as it turns out, though might not becoming 'better,' will at least be a bit simpler.

Tonight, I cracked and ordered Chinese food and became full; hence, I am lazy.

Cheers.