gray comes into play

it's intersting to see how people grow up. i'm not talking about the first years from toddler to young adult (although growth in these years is a topic of study in itself), but about the years from being a young adult, to an adult, to, well, a slightly older adult. i can't say this analysis applies to everyone, but if one claims to have grown up without the shades of gray at least affecting that growth then they still have a lot of growing up to do.

young adults have the almost self-destructive habit of looking at things in terms of right or wrong, yes or no, black or white. their view of - and experience in - the world is usually limited by the place they grew up in: home, school, neighborhood, and to some extent movies and tv shows. some are wise (or lucky) enough to be readers and have had the benefit of making use of others' lifetime experiences (a good book is the essence of experience compacted into a few dozen hours of reading), but even those are not enough to truly form a character, as the most powerful motivation for forming one's ideals and convictions is one's own experiences. as such, it's only natural that the decision making process is a fairly straightforward one: according to my parents or against my parents, according to my teachers or against my teachers. this two state perception starts to apply to other things in life, in the very simple extension of according to my beliefs and against my beliefs, which what everyone calls coloring the world in black and white, right or wrong. youth have enough confidence and hubris not only to believe that the world is like that, but to believe that their beliefs are the standards against which the world should be measured.

entering the real world (which typically happens in the early twenties) really changes things. all of a sudden there are other people in one's life, not parents or teachers, who have other opinions (and standards and beliefs) but who don't force others to follow these opinions. just about everyone one meets at such an age is different. one may also become exposed to travel at that time, even within the same country, and the world of difference that one is subjected to may become overwhelming. the reaction of a young adult to that varies, but the two extremes are refusal and embracing. with refusal, the person simply applies the same black and white critera and decides that the new set of values is wrong, and decides to isolate himself from it (or precariously coexist with it, if possible). with embracing, the person decides that this new set of values is more appealing than his current one and thus decides to embrace these values as his own because his original ones are, well, wrong. in between these extremes, people's reactions vary. but even at that stage, the world is still in black and white. some grayness comes into play, when the person starts to take things into consideration in a "hmmm, this may be right" kind of way, when "doubt" (the quotation marks are here for a reason, more on that later) starts to seep into the set of values. it is then that gray comes into play.

the very mark of growing up is realizing that ones' beliefs are not set in stone. it is easy to judge other beliefs, but it is an act of maturity to accept them. it is not embracing other beliefs, nor is it changing your own to suit them, but the ability to view these beliefs as things outside of you, things that bear the analysis without a "right and wrong" tag. as one grows older and wiser, one comes to realize that there is always room to negotiate, room to move back and give some to gain some. then comes compromise, the point where one realizes that one can't get everything one wants. the latter stages of growing up, those bordering on growing wise, is when one starts to look inward, into the set of concepts one takes as beliefs, and to analyze these beliefs as abstract ideals apart from one's ego. this, i think, is where one can say that one is fully grown, where one's limitation to maturity is not in one's prejudices but in the time it takes one to analyze them and others to better form them. it's a constant growing cycle, one that perpetually improves, changes and reaffirms one's beliefs. it is in the ability to self-doubt that one can truly grow, not grow up (which this entry is about) but grow as an individual. doubt is not a bad thing, doubt is a necessity to stop people from turning into self-appointed gods. one's ego must never get so big as to never doubt one's beliefs.

it must be noted, however, that this doesn't mean that one must not hold on to what's right or wrong. on the contrary, if a certain belief has withstood several iterations of critical doubt, then that's all the more reason to hold on it and explain to others why it is a belief and how it's not wrong. a balance can be reached between doubting and criticizing everything and holding on to what really makes sense or is correct.

after all, that what growing is all about.