I once had a professor in college initiate a discussion about what point a person is truly considered an adult. His firm belief was that once you have a child, you are mature. He believed this because his definition of maturity was that when you put someone else's needs before your own, as most (emphasis on the most) parents do, you are acting maturely. I agree that parenting is a sign of maturity (again, emphasis on most parenting) but for a different reason.
We live in uncertain times. To be a parent today is difficult because you have experts saying 5 different things. Discipline, but be positive, be firm, but nice, give your kids freedom, but protect them...etc etc. To make any kind of decision for your children gets more and more difficult especially as they get older and they become yet another figure looking over your shoulder telling you how to do your job. As a parent, you make decisions regardless of your uncertainty, hoping for the best. That is what maturity is.
Not only in parenting, but in life, we must make difficult decisions for ourselves. The more important the decision is, the harder it is to make, and we are often paralysed by indecision. We then use religion (God has the answers), science (we can find the answers using a specific process) and conspiracy theories (some group of people have the answers) to try to soothe ourselves. Marx's statement that religion is the "opium of the people" rings true and the problem with that is that we shouldn't be relying only on others for guidance. We have to thoroughly analyse and believe something to be true on our own terms, not because some authority said so.
"The popularity of conspiracy theories is explained by people's desires to believe that there is some group of folks who know what they're doing."-Damon Knight
It takes courage to take a stand in today's world. Rollo May had an interesting discussion of this in his book Man's Search for Himself. Courage because it is very possible that there are no real answers. I do not mean this in a nihilistic sort of way, but as perhaps more of a relativistic sort of way. Perhaps our quest for definite answers is due to our discomfort with uncertainty. The higher road then lies not in finding definite answers, but in finding the right answers for the right time. We can then also avoid relativism whereby people can use their "culture" as an excuse for comitting atrocities. This is not an easy thing to do. For instance, Canada is currently trying to pass legislation in favour of same-sex marriage. They are having difficulty because there are some people who do not agree that it should be passed. However, this is why it is a good debate: there are two sides to the issue, and one will prevail. If there were only one side of the debate, how would we have the possibility of analysing it to be true? We would have to assume that it was, since it is in the only answer provided. We would then never have the possibility of changing our minds at a future time when we have made more progress, because any sort of progress would be eliminated.
Analysing history provides us with insight for the future. At any point in history when there is great change, we are plagued with doubts. I am sure when the right for women to vote was in parliament the same sort of debate roared that currently does. Now we think nothing of the fact that less than 100 years ago women were not allowed to vote. What is a conservative but a worshipper of dead radicals? Progress is being made, however, we must keep in mind, as Oliver Wendell Holmes reminds us that "All change is not growth, all movement is not forward." Again, more uncertainty. If we do move forward, we risk moving in the wrong direction. But if we don't move forward, we are lost .
"He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being. "-Paul Tillich
"Maturity is the capicity to endure uncertainty." -Finley
1 comment:
When a child you are usually in a state of unknowing or uncertainty, when one becomes mature the individual has to have a front managerial certainty and talk with a authoritarian stance, as one experiences the world it is usual for many who seek to have the realization that those who speak as such not only were deluded but often downright dishonest and they know exactly they are in bad faith.
Often the front is just some loathsome self hatred that many having had a long dose of there falseness need to return back to a infantile state such as talking baby talk to the baby to unload ones dishonesty and seek relief from ones own criminal or at any rate ones own prison of pretentiousness.
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