Maturity

I stay alone or with a good friend who, i know, just listen before answering.

Maturity...is when the apple is ripe it will fall.

I've realised lately that I've become a father figure to my Daughters boyfriend -- and he accepts it.
Is this maturity on my part?

Paul

Maybe you hope it'll rub off on him and stop him shagging his sister.

If I can pile on a little item here, up to a point people will agree upon a few meanings of 'maturity', ability to cope with life, or self reliance, but the meaning soon becomes just a value judgement 'right behaviour', just like the word 'intelligent' starts of with a fairly tight meaning and quickly becomes 'the right way of thinking'.

quote:

Originally posted by Fisbey:
What constitutes maturity?

A degree of motional resilience, stability and the ability to empathise and consider other peoples views? (Yikes! That counts me out)

I would have thought that emotional resilience might just be the first casualty of maturity.

Fredrik

"The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is he wants to live humbly for one".
I read that recently.

quote:

Originally posted by Fisbey:
I feel myself at odds with many people who while seeming academically intelligent, don't really come across (to me anyway) as particularly grown up.

When young people become successful in their career in spite of a poor upbringing, it brings with it a new-found confidence and a realisation that they can take control of their lives, more successfully too than anyone else have ever managed, ie. their parents or guardians. This can obviously lead to a form of arrogance which under the circumstances, is completely understandable - "New Empowerment" if you like, without understanding the rules of conduct (this is getting into "class" now). With a crap childhood and new found wealth and confidence, there is an urge to replay the lost youth and revisit immaturity in order to overwrite those years with a better version.
It is fully understandable and, I think, a good sign that class separation is being eroded. It may be irritating, but it's a by-product of the making of a better world. I like it personally. I like to see it. Look at it and think who they might have been otherwise, and be glad for them.

quote:

When young people become successful ........- Look at it and think who they might have been otherwise, and be glad for them.

I agree as well, and it's common to see this in the organisation I work for. But with time and experience of lifes setbacks, mistakes, injustices the

quote:

form of arrogance

will temper and out of that comes maturity.

Another nonpersonal angle: Let's contrast cleverness against wisdom.

Cleverness, smartness is valued more than wisdom. It's successful in competitive environments like forums and social life. A forum has debate, speed, scoring points.

Wisdom has a smell of old clothes. It's restricted to braindead religious adulation. (I might be exaggerating a bit to make the point clearer.)

Why try for wisdom if you can have cleverness?

Alex dear chap - That entirely depends upon how comfortable you are with yourself. (Dammit - that puts me in Cleverness when I was aiming for Wisdom)

quote:

Originally posted by AlexanderVH:
Another nonpersonal angle: Let's contrast cleverness against wisdom.

Alex,

I'm not sure I know what you mean by 'wisdom' but I know what I mean by wisdom and I would take wisdom over cleverness any day of the week. I know many clever people but few of them are happy. I know a few very wise people and all of them are happy.

Regards,

Erik

I am more and more uncertain with myself every year that passes. Is that maturity? It is certainly not competive. Fredrik

Hek Erik,

You sure knoe how to make me happy! Are wise people always happy? If so, I stand no chance, 'cause I am definately not clever.

Fredrik

quote:

Originally posted by Fredrik_Fiske:
I am more and more uncertain with myself every year that passes. Is that maturity? It is certainly not competive. Fredrik

No Fredrik, it isn't maturity, it's just uncertainty. It's better to give it your best shot than not to give it a shot at all. C'mon Fredrik, you are a major player in this forum - give yourself a kick in the ass and get back on the case. I wouldn't care if I didn't care.

Jeez - it's nearly 2.00am. What the hell are you doing up anyway?

quote:

Originally posted by Fredrik_Fiske:
Hek Erik,

You sure knoe how to make me happy! Are wise people always happy? If so, I stand no chance, 'cause I am definately not clever.

Fredrik

'Wisdom' in Buddhist terms is knowing how things really are (not how they apppear to be but how they really are)because when we know how things really are we can't be afflicted by delusions such as anger, attachment, jealousy etc. thus one is always happy. It is a strange fact that people who are very attached to their own happiness are very often the people who are most unhappy. This is because they are constantly focussed on their needs and their desires.

In this world there are hundreds of millions who are worse off than us, so if we count our blessing we can see we dont have much to be unhappy about at all.

Many people die in terrible pain, in great fear and alone without a friend in the world but you have your health, your music, your friends and there is worse shit in the world Fredrik than a botched post on an internet forum.

Yes, I think wise people are always happy and wisdom can be learnt.

All the best Fredrik,

Erik

quote:

Originally posted by Rasher:
Jeez - it's nearly 2.00am. What the hell are you doing up anyway?

Rasher,

Well what are you up so late for....not wine and lemsip surely?

Erik

quote:

Originally posted by Rasher:
Alex dear chap - That entirely depends upon how comfortable you are with yourself.

Agreed. And how comfortable you are in your environment. I do think fora can be tough environments. This forum is quite nice and easy going, actually.

I'd count myself in the wisdom camp. Wisdom can kick the stuffing out of cleverness any day. I can take on three of them clever chumps before breakfast. Wiseguys rule!

Uh..

Maturity is the realisation that life isn't worth living; prior to "maturity", one merely suspects it.

All sorts of other grim realisations come with this development which together characterise the graduation.

quote:

Originally posted by Earwicker:
Maturity is the realisation that life isn't worth living; prior to "maturity", one merely suspects it.

All sorts of other grim realisations come with this development which together characterise the graduation.

EW,

Nice to see you back here and on good form, we were going to send out a search party for you.

All the best,

Erik

quote:

Originally posted by Earwicker:
Maturity is the realisation that life isn't worth living

Hi EW!
Good evening!
Maturity is the realisation that only a part of life is worth living.
And one should decide which one.

quote:

Originally posted by erik scothron:

I'm not sure I know what you mean by 'wisdom'

I think the comment can make sense with most people's intuition of wisdom,
which is often close to the above mentioned 'maturity'.

quote:

Originally posted by erik scothron:

but I know what I mean by wisdom and I would take wisdom over cleverness any day of the week.
I know many clever people but few of them are happy. I know a few very wise people and all of them are happy.

Well, I agree. I contrasted wisdom with cleverness because I think culturally we promote cleverness.
Most forum environments do it too. Debate has a lot of cleverness in it.
If people adapt sensibly to an environment, then 'immature' is not a good label for their behaviour.

I also used the pejorative phrase 'religious adulation' because it shows a bit of an (in part delusional)
individualist anti-humility attitude that makes people turn away from religion.
I would say religions try to provide wisdom.

quote:

Originally posted by erik scothron:
It is a strange fact that people who are very attached to their own happiness are very often the people who are most unhappy. This is because they are constantly focussed on their needs and their desires.

This is very nice. Take enough care of yourself such that you're not too unhappy, and then get on with more interesting things.

Maturity is a word (and behavior) MADE UP by some control freak. A word to make one think they have to behave in a particular manner that the control freak believes is acceptable behavior.

Eventually a couple of real weak dudes believe this is the right behavior and tell other weak dudes and so on. (A bit like religion really…. Ooops did I say that).

Then all of a sudden we can’t do all the crazy things we used to do.

Now that’s what I call control

Veronika