It was an interesting time at the cabin this last weekend, with some young men in tow, and the long and very close encounters made me bring up a question: what is maturity? With me, I was so much older that mere age answered some of the question. I had little energy for silly stuff, made myself stop drinking for fear of a hangover, went to bed early because I was tired, and so on. But there is much more. Maturity, I came to realize, is not only an accumulation of wisdom and decency, but as often as not, an adjustment to the social norm, so that one does not look foolish. Period. And often without recourse to any other standard.
It begins once the child understands that it is not alone in personhood, and accelerates with age, culminating for most in that most awkward of times, junior high, or what is now called middle school. It continues for the rest of our lives, but for me, at least, that was the time of the crucible, where embarrassment and humiliation reached its height. I scaled that height first by becoming a wise-ass, and then by becoming cool. Later, that turned into being 'reasonable,' and perhaps even moral, but it was here that I was made - for better and most definitely for worse.
I remember a joke told by the older boys, those in 8th or 9th grade, on us newbies to the adolescent world. It went something like this: A polar bear is sitting in a bathtub. A man comes upon him and asks, "what the heck are you doing in my bathtub?" The polar bear replies, "no soap, radio!" At this the older boys would laugh. If all went as expected, and it usually did, the younger guys also laughed, at which point the older boys would sneer, "what's so funny, idiot? It doesn't make any sense!," by which the whole world (seemingly) understood that the younger guys were laughing only to fit in. Humiliation! Of course, we passed in on, for we had learned the lesson - be smug and/or cool, and show your superiority by putting others in their place.
Get along. Never reveal your true self, because it is weak and desperate to belong. Harden yourself. Never be the fool.
As it was, the young men with us had not learned how to do this very well, and were not in the upper echelons of their age group, to say the least. And they were absolutely a delight to be with, because they were, against all efforts they might have put out, as natural as could be. Real human beings. For most of us, it takes a lifetime of de-learning to achieve this. For these guys, however, they will probably take a lifetime of hard knocks before age mellows most into understanding that just being alive and honest is more than enough. For most, this takes a long, long time.
In the Gospels, Jesus not only tells us to love the children, but to be like them and not harden our hearts. He also tells us to leave our families and home to follow him, something which most of us cannot conceive - how could a loving god-man say such a thing? But the two are not incompatible. We harden our hearts by fitting in, by becoming firm and respected parts of our social system, just as the Pharisees did. We become, as it were, beyond ridicule, respected in our jobs and families. And by this, we also reject those who have not done so as inferior, as misfits. To become like children - little ones, I take it, not sneering adolescents - we must trust, be open, be ready to become fools, for thinking we know everything that we should, and behaving as we should, closes us to something greater.
The ego is not the greater, and that is what is built up in our socialization. We must have it, of course, or we just might end up with "Lord of the Flies," but such socialization should revolve around the 'greater' that the elders, those with wisdom, have come to know. This is incompatible with the world at large, I know, and it is hard to conceive of how such a society could compete with the worldly, but it is right. We know this by how we have been socialized, and for what reasons. Much - as Mister Rogers knows - is necessary, but much is also dark, cold, and cloistering. And if you don't believe me, I have a joke to tell you...FK
It begins once the child understands that it is not alone in personhood, and accelerates with age, culminating for most in that most awkward of times, junior high, or what is now called middle school. It continues for the rest of our lives, but for me, at least, that was the time of the crucible, where embarrassment and humiliation reached its height. I scaled that height first by becoming a wise-ass, and then by becoming cool. Later, that turned into being 'reasonable,' and perhaps even moral, but it was here that I was made - for better and most definitely for worse.
I remember a joke told by the older boys, those in 8th or 9th grade, on us newbies to the adolescent world. It went something like this: A polar bear is sitting in a bathtub. A man comes upon him and asks, "what the heck are you doing in my bathtub?" The polar bear replies, "no soap, radio!" At this the older boys would laugh. If all went as expected, and it usually did, the younger guys also laughed, at which point the older boys would sneer, "what's so funny, idiot? It doesn't make any sense!," by which the whole world (seemingly) understood that the younger guys were laughing only to fit in. Humiliation! Of course, we passed in on, for we had learned the lesson - be smug and/or cool, and show your superiority by putting others in their place.
Get along. Never reveal your true self, because it is weak and desperate to belong. Harden yourself. Never be the fool.
As it was, the young men with us had not learned how to do this very well, and were not in the upper echelons of their age group, to say the least. And they were absolutely a delight to be with, because they were, against all efforts they might have put out, as natural as could be. Real human beings. For most of us, it takes a lifetime of de-learning to achieve this. For these guys, however, they will probably take a lifetime of hard knocks before age mellows most into understanding that just being alive and honest is more than enough. For most, this takes a long, long time.
In the Gospels, Jesus not only tells us to love the children, but to be like them and not harden our hearts. He also tells us to leave our families and home to follow him, something which most of us cannot conceive - how could a loving god-man say such a thing? But the two are not incompatible. We harden our hearts by fitting in, by becoming firm and respected parts of our social system, just as the Pharisees did. We become, as it were, beyond ridicule, respected in our jobs and families. And by this, we also reject those who have not done so as inferior, as misfits. To become like children - little ones, I take it, not sneering adolescents - we must trust, be open, be ready to become fools, for thinking we know everything that we should, and behaving as we should, closes us to something greater.
The ego is not the greater, and that is what is built up in our socialization. We must have it, of course, or we just might end up with "Lord of the Flies," but such socialization should revolve around the 'greater' that the elders, those with wisdom, have come to know. This is incompatible with the world at large, I know, and it is hard to conceive of how such a society could compete with the worldly, but it is right. We know this by how we have been socialized, and for what reasons. Much - as Mister Rogers knows - is necessary, but much is also dark, cold, and cloistering. And if you don't believe me, I have a joke to tell you...FK
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