Maturity

So I took another math test yesterday, this one was a 2 hour examination that took me 11 minutes. It seems any wish I might have had to transfer my talents away from mathematics have failed, oh well. Afterwards however I found myself in a much better mood than last time. As a result I did not feel the need to create another post of pure emotional explosion, or Emoplosion as I'm calling it. I'm all for free writing, but seriously, that post was crap.

Anyway, I got to thinking yesterday and this morning about the idea of maturity. and decided to elucidate my thoughts in this online format. It seems to me that maturity is something that a lot of people talk about without taking the time to think about what they really mean by it. I rarely talk about how mature people are, because when it comes down to it I've never known. I know that people can take either mature or immature actions, but generally even that distinction is filled with gray area. For instance, I often make a lot of immature jokes, but I excuse this as being for sake of parody, and in so doing I validate my actions as mature. Responding to criticism or insult by simply saying 'your mom' followed by whatever insult preceded the response isn't mature, hell, it's not even funny, but in a way that's the point, or so I tell myself.

Looking to nature it seems that many animals go through some sort of irreversible physical change and this signifies their maturity. Deer for instance lose their spots, male lions grow manes etc. The difficulty with people though is that while we do undergo physical change it most definitely does not signify any kind of maturity, especially the kind of social maturity that people talk about so often. This point could be argued of course, but I challenge you to find maturity in a boy sticking his dick in cricket food, people mindlessly hooking up with strangers at parties, even better groups of people drinking excessively as justification for the aforementioned hookups. Find maturity in male binge drinking, find maturity in cracking voices, find maturity in keg stands. Find maturity in self-consciousness over your weight when at a lithe 125, 120, 115??? pounds, find maturity in emo-kids and thug rap fans. I'm sure it's there somewhere, but realistically puberty may bring us a host of things but I don't think maturity is one of them.

But hear again, is another problem, the idea of maturity to us is a purely social construction, and as such it seems like it needs a new definition. Since maturity is now so linked to social activity it seems that the new definition must inherently be defined in some way that demonstrates this link. This is why the idea of physical change that is found to often in nature does not apply. However we can still take a degree of inspiration from this. I've been thinking about this new definition for a long time.....at least 5 minutes now....and I think that as in nature it must be something irreversible, however instead of being a physical change, for us it is a mental change.

I have spoken before of our ability to shift and become who we like, our personalities can change at an alarming rate. I have also spoken of how we resist adherence to a personality for too long, I have admitted that I find myself to be an actor and a liar in that I change who I am frequently and am afraid of closing doors now open to me even if it means being able to open a single one that I've never been able to before. In short I have discussed the reluctance to define ourselves in a persistent sense. I think that maturity has a lot to do with this, while immature we do bounce between personalities, we are confused as to who we are and as a result of attempting to define ourselves as many things we end up defining ourselves as nothing.

I think that maturity comes when something happens to you, a wonderful or horrible event, a big decision, something major, something social, that causes you to realize that there is no longer value in being defined as nothing, that there are some personalities which are truly not you, and in defining what is not you, in closing those doors you begin to define that which is you. The process might be slow, closing one door at a time, or it might be immediate, choosing the one or two paths to take, but nevertheless that's it to me. That's maturity, it's letting go of the shallow idea of being everything at once and finding the meaning to delving deeper.

We each swim on the surface of an ocean so that we can see the horizons, in diving beneath we can never hope to see so far, but someday don't you want to see what's beneath the surface? In this definition though I would like to take away the negative connotation of immaturity. I believe that I am an immature person at present, I think I've decided to close some doors, but there are still many I keep ajar, I might peek my head beneath the surface, but never so far that I can't reach the surface once more.

Anyway, I don't see one as positive and the other as negative, everyone has their own way of dealing with life, so next time you go to call someone immature, think about what you're saying and if you're trying to insult them, then reconsider and think about whether or not it's actually for the best for them. If someone should call you mature, or immature, don't resist and be contrary about it, perhaps it's just how they see you. If people are calling you immature and you resent that, think about it, are you immature? If you see it as a problem, if you get defensive, then maybe you should think about why it offends you. Learn to accept yourself for who you are.

Anyway, I might add to this later if I think of more to say, hope everyone has a good day.