"A man learns until his death." - old Hungarian saying.
Why so immature?
In spirit of that saying, I spent my entire life questioning everything I was taught, by parents, by school, by society, by everything.
One of those things that I question the most is the concept of "maturity". Why? Because to me, it seems extremely arbitrary, vague and nonsensical. My family's - or more precisely, my mother's and sister's -interpretation of the word "maturity" is basically a very small set of behaviors that are deemed acceptable to them, based on their own skewed perception of what society deems acceptable and what people care about.
From my point of view, childhood is being obsessed with maturity, and adulthood is no longer caring, and just doing whatever you want, because you're an adult. Not so much from the point of view of my mother and my sister, to whom adulthood means refraining from a large list of completely harmless arbitrary things, like sitting down on the grass in your own garden or backyard. Apparently, sitting down onto the ground is somehow so childish that the neighbour will report you to the police for it, and you have to squat to pet your cat, or something.
Sure, I admit it, I'm a rather immature person. My childhood lasted twenty-eight years (during which I was denied agency at every turn, and constantly chastized for every little faux pas), and this left me with my childish desires and childish refusal to be broken in.
In fact, the nine-ish months made me see their version of "maturity" for what it truly is: Stockholm-syndrome. Being resolved and resigned. Having accepted suffering, and no longer even having the energy to dream of something better. No imagination.
No. Maturity shouldn't mean that. Maturity shouldn't be synonymous with being a zombie or an NPC, with being assimilated into a dystopian culture that seeks to completely eliminate individuality. Maturity should mean first of all, two things:
Not giving a ****, because you're an adult, no longer a child who has to fear "What will mommy think?". You're an adult. You don't have a mommy. Your children might have a grandma, but you don't have a "mommy".
Being able to fend for yourself if left to your own devices.
Admittedly, I am lacking in both departments, especially the latter. But my mother and my sister are lacking in the first department, especially given their highly skewed and irrational perception of what is socially unacceptable, what people will even remember, or what will make people think of you negatively. It may just be me being an autist who can't put himself into other people's shoes, but I definitely wouldn't care at all about someone sitting down on the grass in their own backyard, or showing weird sheep signals.
Ideologies
According to my mother, being an adult and being "mature" also has to include being apolitical and being an apathetic nihilist who has given up on all hope of society ever improving in any measurable way.
I told her exactly what I think about work: that I hate it, and think that wageslavery ought to be abolished (or at the very least, the 40-hour work week needs to be lowered to 24 hours), that I advocate for Universal Basic Income, etc. She called me delusional. Luckily, there are millions of people out there on the Internet telling me that I'm not. She'd have me believe that I am the one and only weirdo who believes in those ideas, yet here are a million people on the Internet informing me, that I'm not the only one.
What does a mature person do, according to my mother? According to her, the mature person gives up all of his/her ambitions to escape wageslavery, even if alternatives to it are very much real. Freelancing? Founding your own business? Investing in crypto? Nah, don't try any of those, they only works out for one out of a million! A real mature person accepts that he/she is one of the 999 999 others, and gives up before even trying!
What's up with this really weird interpretation of maturity? Is maturity supposed to be synonymous with misery, or what?
Luckily, there are a million people on the Internet saying the truth: no.
Social Construct?
Maturity is just as much a social construct as the concept of childhood, or rather, its modern interpretation. Yes, age is very much real, and the reality of infants being unable to fend for themselves when left to their own devices is rooted in biology, but the idea of making everyone whose age (that is, years that have passed since the day of their birth) is below an arbitrary number like 18 a member of a precious protected class is a very modern idea. In the olden days, pretty much everyone over the age of 13 was, for all intents and purposes an adult, and in pre-modern societies, people started working at the age of 8, not 18, let alone 28 like me.
The idea that some things - namely, having fun, enjoying things - should be forbidden to adults is an idea that is rooted in old puritanical culture.
The even more nonsensical idea that adulthood is somehow synonymous with conformity is rooted in jealousy towards people with creativity, pre-emptive jealousy towards people who may achieve (financial) success and/or happiness by trying out alternative lifestyles, and the typical "If my cow dies, the neighbour's cow must also die" mentality.
What's the lesson?
The lesson is to remove toxic people from your life who twist the meaning of maturity in order to keep you down, even when it doesn't benefit them. Sadly, I lack the financial means to leave my home so I can't remove my family from my life, and arguably, I'm probably still not prepared for doing everything completely on my own. Or maybe I am, and I just don't know it yet - after all, humans are born survivors, and I'm sure that my survival instincts would kick in.
The biggest lesson here, is to just do what is right for you, and remove the toxic people who want to chastize you for the smallest of arbitrary things.
To be an adult is to be no longer bound by society's expectations of maturity and childishness. Real maturity is the embracing of your inner child. Fake maturity is its paranoid suppression, always resulting in misery.
Don't be afraid to have passions, dreams, hobbies, ambitions and ideas. Life is not worth living in the shadows of arbitrary and outdated social norms.
