The Essence of Maturity

Everyone is aware of the Tetris Effect named after the well-loved game from which many experienced the effect. The Tetris Effect is when our subconscious replays something (like Tetris) over and over after we have engaged a lot of time with it. We will see it in our minds as we close our eyes. Pieces moving and fitting. Over. And over. And over. Trying to sleep? Too bad. Tetris.

Oddly, while we all seem to recognize this effect, we don't truly consider it much in our day to day lives. Whatever we're focusing on is whatever our subconscious will reinforce. It'll twist it and turn it and warp it in our minds over and over trying to get us to see things from new perspectives or to just get better and quicker at processing that exact thing. If we're ruminating on solving a problem, we may just get some good ideas from it. However, if we're focusing on fear or other negative emotions, it  will put just as much effort toward that and help us find more fear, more anger, and more hatred. We'll find new ways to be offended or scared in every mundane situation.

Being that our subconscious will ruminate in the background whatever we feed it consciously, and since it will pop ideas up into our conscious to help us ruminate, it becomes a feedback loop. If we're worried about something, it will pop up new ways to be worried or provide ideas on how to control a situation. We will then think about those ideas more and more and reinforce what the subconscious will focus on. The subconscious will pop up even more ideas, and we'll ruminate even more. The only way to stop the loop is to change what we're thinking about consciously to redirect what we'll think about subconsciously.

Now here's where we often get in trouble. We don't realize that our issue is quite often one of lack of maturity. This is mostly because we stop focusing on maturity once we leave our parents' house. It was never truly a goal for most people to begin with, and once they leave the house, they no longer have to pretend to be mature by following the rules of the caregivers. Unfortunately, that lack of maturity isn't just cultural niceties or preventing parents from screaming. Maturity is not simply manners like not putting elbows on tables or saying bless you when someone sneezes. 

Maturity is comprehending how to manage one's expectations and processing of events so as to benefit via mental stability. Without the maturity, we destabilize. Now, more-so than ever, we lose sight of maturity. There aren't many good role models, and we have so many distractions that seem to "aid" us in not thinking about our problems. These distractions simultaneously reduce our chances of meaningful connections to support us or teach us how to process. And so, we continue to numb rather than mature.

Maturity is learning to take control of our mood rather than letting others control it for us.

As we numb, our subconscious focuses on whatever we were numbing ourselves with: gambling, TV, drinking, sex, outrage, and so on. We focus on that, we train our subconscious, we feedback loop ourselves right back into it. Addiction of all kinds. And the cause of it all? Simple immaturity. I don't use the word as an insult, I use it as a simple factual concept. A child who throws a tantrum over not getting the color bowl he wants is demonstrating immaturity just as much as an adult putting too much thought into what someone else thinks about them or trying to control a situation. There are so many facets of maturity that most humans haven't even considered beyond childhood. When being called immature, they may think straight to bowl colors and conclude they are quite mature, thank you very much. But they're still dredging the bottom of all that maturity encompasses.

Maturity is actually quite akin to spirit. Much like school spirit, it's all about mood. Maturity is learning to take control of our mood rather than letting others control it for us. It's telling ourselves the proper perspective or story to comprehend how to choose our mood and not be so upset about the bowl change or the neighbor's evil glare. And this applies to any and every single thing that ever modifies our mood beyond peace. If we are not in perfect peace, we are not in perfect maturity. Apart, perhaps from rather rare physical dispositions. There is always more growing to do if we are not otherwise peaceful. This is the very nature of spirituality. It's learning to maintain our spirit of joy, our spirit of love, and our spirit of happiness rather than succumbing to spirits of anger, hatred, and depression. 

Religions have long taught spirituality but have also overly corrupted it with immature ideologies. They teach things that actually align us and tune us to lower moods. Some might tell us that the color of a bowl is important and thus that teaching instills anger when we do not get the right bowl. They often decry anger in the same breath as explaining "righteous" anger. But anger is the very fruit of a teaching then. If a teaching leads us to a mood we do not wish to align with (e.g. it lowers our spirits), then it is a false teaching. It's false because it will not benefit us in remaining at a high level of mood. If a teaching leads us to ways of selfishness and hoarding which are simply aspects of fear of scarcity, then that teaching is not "true" to supporting our mood. We can pick moods that elevate us or moods that depress us. Elevated moods is maturity while lower moods are due to immaturity. Again, not as an insult, but as a realization.

Any teaching that brings us toward the feelings and alignments of joy and peace are therefore good and useful even if they cannot be proven true. And that is a very important distinction. Usefulness toward maturity is good enough. If we want to believe God is an elephant bestowing electro funk raves after we die, and this somehow leads us to remain in love, joy, and peace, then by all means believe it. But if it leads to hate? If it leads to harm? Then ditch it. This isn't so much about lying to ourselves to trick us to be fat, dumb, and happy though. One who begins to truly do this work recognizes the value in it. Aligning with joy, peace, and love is what makes us more capable, more competent, more motivated, and more loving. 

Aligning with joy is not smiling dumbly at the TV pretending all is well as the world burns. It's acknowledging the world may have problems to be solved, but recognizing that it doesn't need to have control over our mood. We get to choose that ourselves. And if we can find ways to support in our societies growth, then great! But if not, if we don't have the power or ideas to support course correction, then we still don't need to contort our mood. This is the essence of maturity. It is hard to grasp this teaching, however, when we are immature.

We can not only increase our capacity to withstand discomforts, we will find ourselves with fewer discomforts to withstand.

Much like a child, we can teach them the importance of sleep but they won't get it. They won't believe us. We can tell them the importance of eating right, but that doesn't really apply to them. We can tell them the bowl color doesn't matter, but by golly, they've been slighted and this unjustness shall not be permitted to exist! Immaturity prevents growth, but we can choose to seek maturity which enables us to learn the lessons at the pace we are ready to learn them. A big part of maturity is not looking at the top of the maturity stairs and expecting we "should" be at the top. No, we should be exactly where we are and looking at the next step. For all intents and purposes, there are far too many steps to be looking at the top. We'd get dizzy and fall. Choose to climb though, and focus on the next step in joy.

Maturity is not berating ourselves for failure. It is not judging ourselves for where we are not. It is taking joy in the process and, like a video game, seeing if we can make it to the next step on the next try. we all start at the bottom. The only failure is if we stop trying to climb, and even then it's immediately solved by choosing to climb again. And that climb is not out of desperation or obligation, but out of joy for what it brings us. Maturity isn't a demand. It's not a cosmic law. It's simply the means by which we control our own mood. If you want to be free from the control of external factors, maturity is the answer. We mature because that is what is best for us, not because someone demands it. 

It starts with what we are feeding our subconscious. Feed it good things, wholesome things, loving things, and things that teach us how to live in that high mood of joy and love. It will chew on it, ruminate on it, align with it, and teach us all the more how to find those joyful and loving things. It will aid us in being better and quicker at it. Rather than finding every flaw and opportunity for anger at the blink of an eye, it will teach us how to find the joy, the peace, and the happiness with every blink and breath. This is what aids us in remaining composed with the more challenging aspects of life, and it quite literally enables us to avoid innumerable issues that our immaturity brings with it. We can not only increase our capacity to withstand discomforts, we will find ourselves with fewer discomforts to withstand.

Recognizing this dynamic is the first step. Choosing to use it to our benefit is the second step. As we do it, we will find it is indeed true and that we have been our own biggest enemy for most of our lives. As we truly comprehend this, we begin to see the world in a different way. We each have this opportunity to improve our own lives through simply choosing to align in higher ways. And as we do, we improve our situations. Things are not nearly as external as we had imagined. By understanding this, we begin to see things as operating exactly as they ought which enables us to become all the more at peace with the way of things. But, try to explain that to a child, and they will hate you for it. Maturity cannot be taught to the immature. It can only be demonstrated while the immature can choose to strive for it. This is the way of Earth School.