On Growing Up

Self-control--not control of everything else outside of self--is a hallmark of maturity.

Control of environment is an adolescent thing--to prove to yourself you are capable, powerful, able. But growing up means knowing how far to go, i.e. judgement. Childhood is the period without much power, with only limited ability to control. Although any parent of a manipulative toddler would take issue… 

Societies are individuals writ large. 

You could argue that “primitive” societies are comparable to children--they certainly have been treated as such often enough--in the sense that they are not able to control their environment even if they wish to, and so must adapt themselves to their environment rather than vice versa. You could also argue that those same societies, being as capable as any to devise means of “mastering” their environment, have quite maturely chosen not to, or rather to modify only to the minimum degree necessary for survival and reasonable comfort. 

At this moment in our history, we--meaning the dominant European culture--are still at that adolescent stage of proving to ourselves and to the world that we are powerful, able to prevail over all comers, able to impose our will, able to pin Mother Nature and all our real or imagined competitors and make them say uncle. we have by this time pretty much terrorized the neighborhood and knocked over quite a few mailboxes and totally exasperated our parents to the point where we’re starting to get ourselves in serious trouble with the Law--in this case the Laws of Nature, the laws of physics and chemistry and quantum mechanics--and some of us are at last becoming dimly aware that our power is neither absolute nor necessarily always exercised in the wisest possible way. 

In other words, we are starting to grow up, starting to be aware that our exuberant actions have consequences, and that some of those consequences hurt. Hurt us and hurt our neighbors, friends, family. Growing pains. 

As we grow older (and hopefully wiser) it begins to dawn on us that things are connected in the most uncanny way, so that, for example, one of our favorite pastimes--kicking ass--has this curious effect of sooner or later resulting in our own ass getting kicked. 

Sooner or later the lesson has to sink in. Some adolescents grow up faster than others, some are more “difficult” than others. Sometimes a real “problem child” grows up to be an exceptionally productive, competent, compassionate adult. And this is my great hope for our own Euro-bully society, total hell on wheels in its adolescence, but now, hopefully, on the cusp of a distinguished adulthood. God knows that poor neighborhood can’t well survive the ministrations of this sociopathic wilding adolescent much longer. 

So, now we know what we’re capable of. The sign that we’ve grown up will be when we start using some restraint, begin to apply our power of control not to others but to ourselves, and prove our mastery over our own base impulses--a much tougher adversary than the rest. 

We need to realize we are not in control and surrender to the Higher Power guiding each of us. We are now at a crossroad, and both roads offer a kind of power: a lower false power that can transform the world, force, destroy, uglify, dominate; a higher, greater more real power that can transform us, and lead to appreciation, knowledge, wonder, mystery, beauty, real wealth, life, joy.