Chapter 10 - Viagnostic

There is a point in our childhood when and where we feel that we want to be an adult. We begin to entertain images and possibilities of what we might become while still clinging to the realm of playful freedom. And while we may dream and hope that we never awake into our nightmares, reality will inevitably find its way back to us and sway our personal growth. Maturity is the inevitable outcome of accumulated experience that often entails enduring hardship and realizing that we are stronger than we may have been led to believe. As children, we learn to perform the most basic physical functions that make us less dependent on others and more accountable for ourselves, but ultimately we grow up to sustain and spread the code of life. We come to internalize a vision of maturity that our elders share and instill in us, and it is through the trials that await us all that the baton of communal responsibility is passed on from one aging hand to another ripening in its grasp. We know that we are being groomed to carry and safeguard the lit torch of our culture that supports our sustenance and our future.

However, there is a dichotomy to maturity, which splits into two seemingly irreconcilable branches. Our society expects us to maintain tradition, while our economy is always leaning us towards modernity and diversification. Change cannot occur without the stability of some essential things never changing, and we cannot sustain stability in ourselves without the assurance of returning to equanimity. Every significant change necessitates a rebalancing of life. Something must be relinquished in order for something to be gained if balance is to be restored. As we enter into adolescence, we must give up one level of freedom in order to exercise another. Duties must be fulfilled and rules followed to permit us to make decisions of our own. The lure of adulthood comes with hidden costs and at a price that we do not want to pay. Some of us are obliged to take on too much responsibility too early in our lives and are unfortunately denied the space we need to facilitate a voluntary transition. Contrastingly, many of us stretch out our maturation to a much later date, especially given that we live in an affluent society and mechanized economy where we are rarely exposed to the fundamentally harsh elements of the real world. There are those of us who have had the right role models at the right time to help us transform while many of us have been misled or left our own to find our place. But regardless of the differences in our personal histories, we are driven towards achieving equilibrium between seeking meaning in the expression of our essence and ensuring the continuity of everything that fosters that expression, which includes both our individual biological existence and the collective socioeconomic apparatus that converts our surroundings into a livable and favourable environment.

Although some of us have the fortuitous experience of flowing in the current of life where we encounter the opportunities needed to manifest our essence, most of us are left fighting to access or even recognize them as we are rushed past the misty silhouettes of a life that could have been. We are all ultimately set along a path to become something we are inherently designed to be. It is our nature to fulfill our nature, and that nature includes transcending the things that originally gave rise to our tendencies as we pass through a series of transformative stages that take us to a seemingly familiar but nonetheless undiscovered space to complete our personal metamorphosis. These stages reflect the phases of the viagnostic narrative on a scale representing our whole lives, but it is the second stage that we must first undergo the significant challenge of retaining who we are that manifests in our childhood while the societal behemoth tries to engulf us all to align with its own cultivated universe.

THE RITE OF PASSAGE TO RESPONSIBILITY

The first natural and literal rite of passage begins with our birth, but we had very little to do with this process except to involuntarily partake in its occurrence by emerging from existence itself to be carried forward, outward and back into the world by the mechanisms that enable this simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary event. Our role is arguably quite passive but we are nevertheless braving this life-altering transition, which is significant because it is the first true physical separation of what constitutes us in the whole of the universe; it also instantaneously translates into the greatest initial trauma we must withstand. We are no longer enveloped in the apparent safety of the womb. And despite our extreme reliance on our caretakers, we are unknowingly responsible for learning to become more autonomous. However, it is in the second natural rite of passage that we initiate our deliberate responsibility for ourselves, which is often accompanied or triggered by a more formal recognition that we are ready to begin to acquire the basic knowledge and skills needed for us to be perceived as a valued member of our society. Whether we see this as the maturing phase of childhood and label it as adolescence, it is during this stage that we find our way to maturity through actualized responsibility, and when we signal our desire to become adults. In this sense, the rite of passage to responsibility is the first we consciously pass through, regardless that it may not feel altogether deliberate because we are all more or less culturally influenced and/or physically obliged to do so.

As a critical stage of our lives that leads us to adulthood, this process is symbolic because it conveys to each of us as the person in training and to the community invested in that training or education that we will have a role or set of roles to play. This also occurs naturally because it aligns with another significant biological process that we all undergo, which urges us to develop physically, mentally and socially. It is not a coincidence, but a necessity that we achieve full cognitive development by the time we reach puberty. It means that we are capable of complete rational thinking just prior to our sexual hormones overwhelming us and directing our movement towards procreation. However, as we have continued to modernize civilization, we have increasingly extended this psychological period of development, which has created a troublesome rift in our perception of maturity. On one hand, we let teenagers believe that being able to drive a vehicle, consume alcohol or other age-limited substances and engage in sexual activity are all signs of maturation. On the other hand, we are equally told that we not prepared for the world unless we have advanced knowledge of subjects such as mathematics as a basic prerequisite to be deemed a noteworthy contributor to human progress. But maturity is not about mimicking adults nor is it about the accumulation of knowledge. None of this legitimately signifies adulthood. Maturity is about taking responsibility and the moment a child assumes some accountability for decisions made or actions taken, the passage instantly opens for that child to cross.

Once we believe we are ready to accept personal responsibility and our guardians concur, we set off on our initial journey to confirm this. This is not yet the real trial of life to come, but we need to pass this test and demonstrate that we have acquired the maturity to face the challenges of a sentient existence. In many cultures, we have to prove our worth to secure the basic privileges of our group membership. By doing so, we assume our rightful place, and our sense of belongingness is elevated to one of equals. While this may be the natural course of things, we also see how many societies, past and present, cloud our instincts and corrupt our ethics by creating and reinforcing divisions between mastery and servitude, leaders and followers, and in-groups and out-groups. This occurs because it takes full advantage of our tendencies towards alignment with nature by redirecting that alignment to the perversion of nature expressed in social hierarchies where it serves the interests of one group by convincing other groups that it is in their interest as well. While this is unfortunate to the extent that it may confuse a child’s moral development and imperceptibly rationalize gravely immoral actions, it does not change the need to become an individually sovereign member of a community.

We commonly understand maturity as a demonstration of self-reliance rather than the broader definition of true independence, which comes later in life. The immediate reality that we must face is that the world is not only unstable and inconsistent, but apathetic and cruel as well. For this reason, we cannot continually depend on the good graces of others, and remain shielded from social criticism, emotional manipulation or physical harm. We are obliged to learn how to identify threats and respond to our misfortunes, which as a whole teaches us to become more self-reliant. And while we may not learn everything we need to know, we must inevitably accept the reality that responsibility will be thrust upon us, whether or not we are prepared for the trials of life. But it is during this developmental phase of our lives that we learn enough to let go of unsustainable support to tackle our dependencies directly and take care of our own basic needs. Although we still know or hope that we can rely on others when it is most needed, we come to do more and more without their direct help. The expected outcome of undergoing this rite of passage is the realization that taking responsibility for our alignment with the world becomes one of the inescapable necessities of life. It does not provide us with the meaning we seek, but it is instrumental to finding it.

TRUST IN TRANSITION

While the normal progression in our physical maturity begins in the latter part of our childhood and culminates in our early adult years, our personal transformation extends throughout our lifetime and it is during this critical period of development in our lives that the meaningful expression of the self emerges. This development depends on how we align with the demands of society and how well our culture adapts to the changing conditions of the world. We function within a sociocultural framework that rightly or wrongly guides us through the foreseeable struggle between the protective restrictions of a child’s adventures and the insufferable freedoms of an adult’s responsibilities. We can exacerbate any anxieties, frustrations or resentments we experience during this transition by feeling too constrained or by being left largely unattended. In the first case, we do not gain an increase in privileges after consistently fulfilling our duties; in the second, we do not endure any negative consequences to our actions after routinely abusing our liberties. But in a generally preoccupied world, many of us basically do not receive adequate support when faced with a difficult situation. In all these scenarios, we cannot draw a clear correlation between freedom and accountability, and this can weaken our conception of both our fundamental rights and responsibilities as well as trivialize or overemphasize their significance and practice in decisive matters that shape the person we become along the paths we end up following.

Unfortunately, as a society, we confuse children and young adults by assuming that rights must be earned and responsibilities are obligations only met to satisfy someone else’s expectations. But no one has the absolute authority to offer or deny us something that we already inherently possess. While we may grant privileges related to specific roles or positions, or remove them when we break our commonly held rules of conduct within a given society, our basic rights are instantly merited by being alive and they are exercised by simply taking responsibility. It is important that we learn to take ownership of our predicaments to the extent that we can, whether it is for our own subsistence and for the lives of others that we value by helping to secure their rights. This should not come from a forced sense of duty, but rather a conscious decision to commit ourselves to the need for action when circumstances demand it. Our understanding of these inborn rights and responsibilities is crucial during this stage of life and can determine the relationships we form with others and the world as a whole as well as how we respect everything and everyone, including ourselves.

Like all intrinsic rights, we do not need to earn a basic level of respect. It is merely shown and reciprocated to acknowledge those rights in one another. Fundamental liberty and mutual respect are conceptually inseparable. They can only be recognized in one another. And while this does not mean responding to those who exhibit insolent behaviour with the same gratitude or consideration as those who are respectful, it does imply being humane regardless of their conduct, and regardless of whether or not we like them. It is about exemplifying the positive behaviour we value rather than expressing negativity. If we are cruel to those around us, we are more likely to provoke them into behaving more harshly towards us in return or to redirect that cruelty to others or to themselves. Similarly, if we treat maturing children as if they do not have any rights or responsibilities, then they may grow up to feel unworthy of something they already have, or become extremely demanding and feel entitled to things for which they have not taken responsibility. We do not often realize that the indirect messages we convey to our pubescent children is that we do not trust them, and that they are irrelevant or insignificant, however unintended or unconscious these messages might be.

Trust is the glue that bonds all strong relationships. It both derives from and generates stability. But unlike the basic respect inherent to all living creatures, we do need to earn and establish trust. The experience of building trust before adulthood predictably influences whether we become too suspicious or too gullible, and whether we end up being very open or extremely defensive. This includes becoming competitive or cooperative, dependent or independent, and being too candid or too pretentious and insincere. Naturally, the more trust we build, the more risk we accumulate as well since we expose ourselves to deeper levels of betrayal. This is analogous to the level of security clearance given to skilled individuals at a high tech facility or to an online system with very sensitive information or centralized operational control. The greater number of permissions they are granted that are supposedly based on increased evidence of their reliability, the greater the access they have to the things that can cause the greatest damage. But this is a necessary risk. We can only benefit from the contributions of others by establishing trust, and we can only build that trust by giving others the opportunity to demonstrate it. This means that we have to extend a basic degree of trust to people and processes in order for that trust to build. And while this is common in any society where we operate under the presumption that there is a basic code of conduct, that trust is easily lost if we violate the rights of its members or treat any of them with disrespect.

We know that trust includes all forms of confidence that we need. This is especially vital to the fragile identities of adolescent youth who are testing or being tested against the standards of adult role models or being compared against the expected performance of their peer groups. Since we do not exist in isolation, building personal confidence means relying on others to help us develop and refine our skills as well as to ascertain the type and level of challenge we are prepared to undertake. Our perceived independence is always relative to our circumstances, which depend on the immediate availability of resources and the opportune training we acquire. We are instinctively driven by our concerned sense of security in the world, whether it is being assured that the ground is not going to collapse beneath us or feeling safe in the company of complete strangers, and our self-reliance is critical to this. However, we quickly learn how much our interactions with others affect our stability and inevitably shape how we build trust, especially during this delicate transformation in our lives. We begin life with a common and inescapable dependency, and it continues to take on different forms until we die. Unfortunately, this can have tragic consequences at crucial points in our lives when we find ourselves having to rely on those who may hurt, manipulate or neglect us for a myriad of reasons that lead to feelings of betrayal.

All of us eventually come to know what it means to have too much or too little responsibility. We either feel a heavy burden placed upon us or face situations that imply our lack of importance in terms of our necessity to others and to the system on which we subsist. To integrate into a society that facilitates our sustenance, we all need to feel relevant. And when we do not, we are motivated to abuse it or disrupt it to bring attention to ourselves, or we fall into highly codependent arrangements with others who feel equally marginalized and engage in insular groupthink that is susceptible to even deeper levels of persuasion than what we witness in mainstream media and popular culture. Much of this influence is achieved by exploiting our fears and desires, and especially by triggering feelings of guilt and shame in relation to our behaviour and identity; this can have a significant impact on our confidence in terms of our ability and value as well as our response to instability, confusion or danger.

When we are young, we are more vulnerable to fractures in our mental foundation because we are still in the process of learning to solidify a base sense of trust, which during adolescence intensifies as a legitimate concern. This is because we face being caught between losing our sheltered childhood status and not yet gaining the privileges and associated liabilities of our adult roles. During our infancy, we may not be able to contribute very much, but we are still seen as unaware of the world and ignorant of what is required of us. We remain highly dependent on our parents or guardians. However, at some point as we grow older, we feel somewhat betrayed because we are suddenly deemed culpable often before we are told we will be made accountable. Sometimes, the transition process becomes so long and gradual that everyone forgets that a transition must occur. Nevertheless, we unexpectedly discover that what was once inappropriate is now completely intolerable and that we are not only accountable for our actions but as well for other duties to our family and society. Our elders expect us to know that they have already begun to transfer accountability to us as we are unwittingly inaugurated into the world of punishment and appeasement that is constantly chasing blame and reward. Although it is always debatable to the extent that these expectations are clearly expressed, they are rarely negotiated or planned out carefully. Unfortunately, for our teenage youth, they often do not receive the guidance they need because we assume they will find their own way or ask for help if needed. We could waste energy attributing fault, but our efforts would be best served by bringing awareness to the fact that a transition is needed and by determining what that should look like.

There was perhaps a time when we considered obtaining a driver’s license, graduating from school, finding employment or reaching the age of majority as a means of signaling responsibility, but many of us decreasingly need to drive and our progressively mechanized economy is fundamentally changing how we participate in the world. Even having the right to vote has lost its esteem as we have become increasingly disenchanted with the politics of the masses. We have lost faith in our institutions, which has undermined our maturing relationship with society and has left us all with a widening cultural gap to fill. At some point in the advancement of civilization, we made the mistake of fully outsourcing the management of our children’s education and development because it is extremely clear that we as parents and caregivers have to partake in this process very closely but without being intrusive. It is also apparent that we have to monitor ourselves as well as one another regularly through friendship and counselling in order to reduce the likelihood that we are passing onto the next generation the fear, distrust and misapprehension we have unconsciously carried with us since our youth. It is important that we help build trust in transition, and this requires that we embrace uncertainty as part of life to learn to make decisions and accept the inevitable necessity of mistakes as being integral to the learning process. This also means that greater accountability comes with increased empowerment, where the freedom to make decisions is not confined to the choices laid out for us.

The resilience of our trust is intimately tied to the universal truth and lies at the heart of our mental health. As we will all eventually discover, the trust that binds is based on veracity and integrity, and not on the manipulation of need or the threat of punishment. The volatility of this trust affects our sense of volition, whether it is exercising the right to choose or to act, or knowing when to listen to our intuition and how to interpret our emotions, which affects how we communicate our trust to others and particularly to ourselves. All of this influences our recognition of the power, freedom and responsibility we all possess to regulate ourselves in adapting to our circumstances and in managing our dependencies on both our physical and social environments.

THE CODEPENDENCE OF A COUNTER-DEPENDENT STATE

The fundamental resources we need to sustain and develop our lives lie outside of ourselves, and our physical bodies are the required means through which we interact with our environment to access and consume those resources. It is during our youth that we discover these interactions while experiencing rapid changes in our biology and the demands of the real world that are quickly introduced to us all, and sometimes faster or slower than they should be. Very little happens as smoothly as we hope, and the harshness of our transition is part of the process. For this reason, no one could ever say what the perfect situation should look like. We never know if our misfortunes will later turn into opportunities, and how prosperity may end up in tragedy. And although life for us as adults might be much rougher precisely because of the societal liabilities we inherit, we see during adolescence the responsibilities of what is to come while we try to understand ourselves and how we will fit into the world. This can be a very frightening experience especially when we feel misaligned with everything, and when we undergo this stage without the right compassion that is felt but not seen and without the right balance of guidance and self-determination.

Many of us generally address our insecurity in one of two ways. Either we align with the expectations of our families and follow the plans they set out for us that offer us stability, or we associate with others in search of alternative philosophies and lifestyles that distract us temporarily from our unspoken insignificance as we quietly try to uncover who or what we are. Some of us have the great fortune of being inspired by role models at home or in school, or by historical or contemporary figures that may include fictional characters; they nudge us towards being who we aspire to become or towards what we need to express. But in the process of trying to alleviate our deepest anxieties, the challenges we face as teenagers relate to negotiating and achieving a socially recognized sense of liberty that is caught between being disciplined for our defiance and being mocked for our submissiveness. Eventually, we see a shift from our societal obedience or familial duty to pressured conformity among our cohorts to acquire new identities or redefine existing ones. The result of this conversion is the simultaneous expression of counter-dependence with our elders and codependence with our peers. We detach ourselves from one social dependency only to enter into another exemplification of attachment reinforced by a youthful solidarity around rebellion or, at the very least, the silent rejection of authority. This rejection tends to be strengthened by the exposed duplicity of socioeconomic promises and the foolish allure of finding easily gainful prospects elsewhere, both of which lead us astray.

Although counter-dependence appears to be a natural stage of life, it is a direct outcome of our societies and cultures enticing our children with their inborn significance and then holding it at ransom when we should let them to question it to find their own meaning. We may need to stress duty as a group survival mechanism, but we do this at the expense of transcendent personal growth. The youthful mind is restless because it seeks answers that we cannot provide, but it is more detrimental to dictate the truth because every one of us needs to come to the same universal conclusions on our own. On one hand, we may defy our instruction only to find ourselves returning to it later if it does actually align with reality. On the other hand, we may learn to be unquestioningly submissive by uttering creeds without grasping what they mean or without ever applying them in real and relevant situations to test their veracity. As a society, obedience and defiance define one another and aggressively push each other to their extremes, which only delay the inevitable path to the truth and blind us to the meaning we seek.

Although this phase of life should be relatively brief to give us all enough space to understand our existential patterns and boundaries, the codependence of a counter-dependent state can be so addictive that it may defer our growth indefinitely. This can leaves us disjointed from the realities within ourselves that we cannot we face no matter how far we travel and how many diverse experiences we have. We cannot escape the fact that we are always present everywhere we go and in every situation we encounter. The truth lies within us all and its meaning can only sprout out through the life we live, and the limits of the story we write depend on where we let our roots spread. We cannot evade our dependencies, and any claim to the contrary is just a delusion. We can only choose between the ones that nurture us or poison us, and it is in learning the difference between the two that we will be either transformed or mutilated. When transfigured, we become our potential on the outside; when disfigured, we disguise what remains unchanged on the inside.

Whether or not we appreciate this fundamental reality, we nevertheless still feel a tremendous need to break free from our guardians without knowing what exactly it will serve. We want to exercise our freedom and define our own path after being culturally imprisoned for too long. At some point, we have to remove the training wheels or, like birds, we must take flight on our own. We have to do it ourselves. We may to move to a place of our own, physically and/or metaphorically, even if we have to share it with a total stranger. Like our separation from the womb, we have to breathe on our own even though we are as dependent on the air as our mothers who gave us life. We must let go of our security and face our basic fears so that we can understand what dependency really means and build trust in the greater universe where our sentient sense of being waits to reflect itself back to us.

When we are told everything and we are not afforded the space we need to learn on our own, the underlying autonomy we seek is suppressed even when we are being taught the things that will make us as self-sufficient as possible. It is the conundrum of many good parents and their attempts at good parenting. Unfortunately, the only good parenting at this stage is less interference. More interference guarantees more resistance and rebellion, which leaves parents inciting the very thing they are hoping to avoid. It is the paradox of control where we have to let go of it in order to gain it back. Parents, who are justifiably fearful of the avoidable perils that their children may encounter, have to trust whatever wisdom they have imparted will stick and let their children validate their own abilities and learn from their mistakes. The whole purpose of this stage in life is to learn about risk, cope with uncertainty and prepare for real-life challenges. It is also where we begin to distinguish what we intrinsically like and discover our talents. But depending on how we are conditioned, we may respond in one of two extreme ways. We may be too risk averse and overly cautious to the point that something becomes unavoidable and we cause it to happen or make things worse, or we may behave carelessly and take uncalculated risks that will likely result in harm to ourselves and/or to others.

A transitional state of codependence with our peers is expected in order to practice building new relationships and managing difficult ones, especially when we witness them in a familial setting. We partially distance ourselves from our parents or guardians to signal our desire for independence and sometimes to escape problems imposed on us; this includes our yearning for new social interactions, which coincide with sexual tensions as they begin to affect the tone and intent of our communication. This natural inclination also unconsciously draws out our competitiveness to position our mating candidacy as well as our basic need to cooperate or conform to reap the benefits of group membership. For many of us, it prepares us for the roles we will play as we align with the socioeconomic system that sustains our livelihood. We may compete as we forge new identities and test our limits, but a great degree of conformity within groups arises because most of us understandably lack the security to risk becoming isolated. We are essentially practicing with our peers in anticipation of the real game of life to come. But there is an expectation that as we demonstrate the discipline to remain focused on achieving valued goals or completing important tasks, we will be rewarded by being granting the full rights and freedoms of our group membership.

While this varies from society to society, a notable percentage of us tend to fall in line with the prescribed norms of our communities, while the rest of us temporarily turn to the allure of subcultures and countercultures as a response to outdated traditions. Although we often associate this with drug use or other habits deemed inappropriate for general public exposure, they are mainly outlets for us to feel personally unfettered in alternative group settings where our desires are shared and free of shame, despite the undesirable or deleterious outcomes that may follow. The people we encounter at first seem preferable because of the social acceptance we experience. But in the end, we realize that everyone is as confused and insecure as we are, and we inevitably experience or rediscover betrayal as easily as we form bonds with others. In parallel, we may find new heroes or role models to drive us towards who we believe we are, and while some remain as inspiration, many others reveal their insincerity or flaws that make us reassess our attitudes towards others and ourselves.

This lack of authenticity is perhaps why there are the few among us who feel particularly alone or out of place in both the mainstream culture and their divergent substitutes as we watch them all shift like the seasons. We may seem like the people who struggle the most, but we also have the most to gain because we have a broader awareness of the world. We take notice of the inconsistencies and gaps in our collective knowledge, and we seek a greater depth of meaning to life. But this awareness is not to be confused with intelligence or having the upper hand as in knowing something others do not know and using it to our advantage. It is actually a great burden because we feel compelled to act on this awareness regardless of the negative individual consequences it may have on us. It pushes trust and accountability to a whole other level beyond what most of us wish to assume, and it is why the majority of us choose a path already chosen or created for us. Our lifestyles are founded on the false doctrine of autonomous will, where we allow ourselves to unequivocally believe we are the absolute masters of our predominantly inconsequential choices. We learn how to imitate being aware, rational and mature in order to detach ourselves from the deep-rooted realities of our sentient existence. As our contrived world becomes more intricate, we harden a thick layer of moral pretention over our fictitious identities by partaking in cultural codependence. This means that we secure a set of shared beliefs and rules that we do not need to question as long as we are superficially satisfied with their logic and they can prevent us from seeking the meaning we are afraid we will not find much like the hopes and lessons embedded in our discarded childhood fairytales.

TESTING THE RULES AND BOUNDARIES OF OUR ALIGNMENT

Adolescence essentially represents that first break from our cultural programming, especially if we were not encouraged to think for ourselves. Although some precocious children begin this process at a much earlier age, others do not question much of anything until long after they reach the legal age of assumed personal responsibility in their respective societies. Yet as we transition into adulthood, many of us will live double lives by pretending to follow our acquired traditions while secretly or illicitly breaking the rules. Moreover, much of what we challenge and how we behave depends on how we experience and interpret the notion of rules. And given the divisively political affiliations of our families and communities, we are often unable to safely express our mounting confusion during this emotionally tumultuous period of our lives and find ourselves trying to develop a genuine sense of self-confidence within a pre-established universe of incontestable truths and untouchable taboos.

There may be fundamental principles of truth that underlie our reality, but no universal rules or modes of action exist that we must strictly obey. There are only guidelines, punctured with anomalies, for us to entertain in our decisions and deeds. These guidelines serve to sculpt our beliefs and identities often swayed by pre-existing interpretations as we formulate our own views, however sound or coarse they may seem. At some point in our youth or early adult life, we begin to challenge the status quo while our inherited culture shapes how we perceive the world we question. Not surprisingly, we tend to confuse this stage of life with rebellion, but this is merely an intuitive response to authority that is imposed without demonstrating its expertise and care for its community. Genuine authority is not based on institutional accreditation, and it can never honestly be established through coercion; it is earned by the success of its practice, which we respect when we see results and disregard when we observe its harm. Hence, there is no need for rebellious behaviour to challenge authority. We only need to validate its assertions. No individual should accept anything as truth simply because someone claims it to be so. And while it is in our interest to consider the knowledge, experience and judgment of others, especially if they have been effectively applied in the past, we must still come to understand things for ourselves.

We tend to trust our own societies either too much or too little, but most of us allow ourselves to be deceived because we need the system on which we depend to give us something to use, defend or blame. It is the one assumed dependency in our alleged independence into adulthood because we equate it to the wilderness where we struggle to attain and consume resources as a natural right. In addition, many of us are easily misled because we believe we cannot be manipulated or indoctrinated. We are foolish enough to think that we are somehow above the influence of the world and make the common assumption that we are more aware or more knowledgeable than the majority of our peers. However, since this cannot be true for most of us who believe this and since our beliefs are products of the same system we come to trust or distrust, we can best contain our influences by being aware that they exist instead of behaving as if we are inexplicably immune to them. It is quite normal to believe we are in greater control of our lives than we really are, but overconfidence is a fundamental threat to our natural development. We need to acknowledge our vulnerability to identify our boundaries instead of repressing our sense of helplessness that arises from being subjected to physical or emotional abuse.

Given the pubescent phase of life initiates a detachment from our core dependency and strongest influence, older youth are best taught by more experienced elders or teachers. While children should learn from their parents, teenagers need their grandparents or those with a wider generational gap to remind them of what has been forgotten and to help them appreciate the challenges that their parents face. Moreover, the elderly wish to divulge what they both know and possess during the winter of their lives while needing assistance in ways that our youth can easily provide during the spring of their contributions to society. Those who have already experienced life should guide those who are eager to live. Naturally, we are desperate for guidance but afraid to ask for it as we get older because as we are learning to behave independently, we are inclined to see the need for support as expressing weakness, or worse, imposing an unending future obligation. But when we find ourselves engaged in the reciprocal exchange of complementary services, we are protected from personal bondage while benefiting from its mutuality. In addition, we tend to see less conflict where we can sustain a safe space for growth to negotiate the right balance between empowerment and responsibility.

We may vary in the degree and quality of social interaction we need, but we all require a sufficient amount of open ground to explore our abilities, temperaments and limitations. This ranges from our physical and intellectual feats tied to the creative potential of our minds and bodies to our emotional and moral tolerances felt around the ridges of our souls, where we truly discover the angels and demons that reside within us all and where we learn to extend our choices beyond the blueprints of our nature. It is during this critical stage of our lives when testing the rules and boundaries of our alignment with reality begins. While these rules and boundaries do not tell us if alignment is always in our best interest, whether as individuals or as a society, they do help to convey who we are by carving the blocks of wood we are into the sentient sculptures of the cosmos. Otherwise, even as hard stone, the raw wilderness of life will break us, or chisel away the pieces that make us whole. Reality indiscernibly and persistently breaches the perimeters of our bedrooms, schoolyards and workplaces. And depending on where and how our divisions are dug or erected, they can turn our environments into playgrounds, battlefields or prisons that reveal both the smooth and rough edges of our undefined essence by drawing us back into struggle and submission with the universe and society.

Like many forms of life, we engage in herding patterns and heavily rely on conformity to gain the safety of numbers against external threats and to keep one another in line. Rules are necessary to coordinate and manage behaviour between and among members of a society, which is clearly exemplified in how we move through traffic or attend an event. We can easily imagine how dangerous it would be to drive quickly through a very busy intersection if we did not conform to a set of procedures. Even when there are no traffic signs, humans organically form rules of conduct in absence of laws just as many social animals do as well. It is built into us and so are the consequences of breaking rules. Consider, for example, what would occur if we started to disrupt a stage play or a musical performance. We all know how socially inappropriate that would be, and unquestionably regarded as disrespectful to both the performers and the audience. At minimum, we would be directed to leave, but also likely be shamed and accosted, and possibly banned from the venue, physically assaulted or charged with misconduct. We do not require direct personal experience to anticipate a negative outcome because this is something we quickly observed during our youth and can extrapolate to most social settings.

Arguably, we have two sets of rules in society. The first set is the written code of criminal and civil law, which if contravened comes with tangible penalties from paying fines to the removal of rights and privileges that could lead to incarceration or even capital punishment. Its intent is to formally and physically manage our behaviour towards others and our institutions, including government, that impact our civil order and economic livelihood. It reflects our concerns with physical security and the political framework that governs a society through its enforcement to maintain stability. The second set of rules is the unwritten code of social customs and manners, referred to as social mores. Its core function is to choreograph our interpersonal relationships and social interactions by adhering to a communal playbook that instructs us on how we conduct ourselves in various scenarios in order to relate to one another. This includes religious practices and business transactions, which come with direct and indirect social disadvantages if we defy social expectations as well as with rewards if we conform perfectly. Both sets of rules also address the personal boundaries of the individual, but they vary in their interpretation, and range in their leniency if violated. In some societies, breaking this secondary code could result in penalties we associate with the primary one such as honour killings. We always had unwritten rules before written ones were inscribed as officially binding records, but as the complexity of our dealings increased so did the necessity for documented rules and authoritative third party intervention to address cases where no agreement on the appropriateness of behaviour between two parties could be reached. Without a set of written guidelines or recognized principles as a starting point, no judge or arbitrator could carefully deliberate before attempting to pass a fair and reasoned judgment. However, while new and changing conditions leave us in a state of perpetual renegotiation regarding formal rules, we continue to make personal decisions on how we interpret and respond to the rules of our society.

We are generally inclined to define maturity as following the rules or being measured against some assumed form of socially accepted behaviour, but those of us rebelling or breaking the rules also establish legitimate and illegitimate ways of seeing maturity as challenging outdated or unfair rules. In this latter context, rules are themselves seen as boundaries to test and used as markers for questioning the morality of our society, and securing our place in it. For some of us, there is purely a desire to tempt fate by stretching the margins of acceptable risk and challenging the rules on how we measure value because a safe life is a boring life or no life at all. Consequently, there is a willingness to risk injury and sacrifice longevity to maximize exhilaration by testing physical limits and attempting to overcome perceived impossibilities. Neither of these viewpoints is completely right or wrong. Our diverse actions simply reflect our conceivable choices. If humans had all behaved in exactly the same way, civilization would never have survived. As individuals, we offer diversity that is bound to what we can each learn and do. But collectively, we can consolidate the experience and history of every individual and extend the limits for everyone. That is to say that we can learn from the trials and ordeals of others to avoid repeating the same mistakes and endangering our lives unnecessarily.

Maturity is not an argument for following or rejecting the rules. It is learning which rules to value or respect, and which ones to break or simply choose not to recognize based on what consistently remains true and based on the conditions in which they are true. Maturity and alignment involve working with the rules and the boundaries they represent to find our way through life to unveil its meaning. In the film Dead Poets Society [10], an English teacher with an unorthodox teaching style uses the subject of poetry to drive his students to think and live beyond the rules, and establish a voice for themselves. Much of society tells us to abide by the predefined paths of success set out for us. But if we carefully look at nature, we realize that rules are suggestions we should track until we uncover more fitting trails to follow. This is how life has flourished. It is this capacity to change or adjust that has facilitated adaptation to a wider variety of conditions over shorter timeframes. Our biological and sociocultural diversity are artifacts of our persistent realignment. Hence, finding the road to maturity means adapting or aligning to reality without necessarily surrendering to the more corrupting elements of society, and we often find it when we know what we must do regardless of how others may judge us. This is where we confront the contradiction between the societal prescription for advancing our lives and the impassioned rationale for living life.

THE REALITY OF A COUNTERINTUITIVE UNIVERSE

We generally associate maturity with adulthood. However, behind the façade of seemingly grown-up behaviour, as adults we try to shroud our persistently irrational and irresponsible tendencies in everything from pursuing romantic relationships to expressing political attitudes. Adulthood is arguably equivalent to a stage performance and involves a great deal of maneuvering that feeds a false perception of self-importance. We especially notice this in older children, who gradually learn to mimic their elders, because they have not yet refined their roles enough to hide a lifelong juvenile proclivity. We do not actually mature as much as we repress, conceal and rationalize our capriciousness and inattention, while we increasingly react with disappointment to our rapidly growing children when they fail to suppress their own impulses. And while teenagers with raging hormones do not easily inhibit their thoughts or emotions as seen when they are outright rude and cruel, they subconsciously expose the underbelly of society by reflecting back the veiled conduct of adults. And we live vicariously through our offspring not only because they naturally bring out the youth lost in all of us, but also because trying to instruct them not to repeat the mistakes we have made is a way of giving ourselves a second chance. Unfortunately, this can be confusing for our adolescent audience when we direct them to prepare for the same rough world that we have been sheltering them from, over the course of their formative years.

Alternatively, what we should be teaching is that the truth is often the opposite of what it appears to be or how we want it to be. If we attempt to oversimplify the world, it will almost instantly become more complex. And if we overcomplicate our lives by addressing every perceived necessity and gaining every competitive advantage, we will discover instead that simplicity is paramount to an enviable and meaningful life. This is the reality of a counterintuitive universe, and it does not cooperate with our intentions unless we align to its complementary nature. For instance, if we want things to be easy, we have to practice what is difficult. Moreover, while most things are not easy or simple, they do not need to be so elaborate that they seem impossible to do or become undesirable to attain. Yet many of us regrettably become addicted to exceeding randomly set performance targets or become obsessed with approximating artificial images of perfection, and quickly lose sight of our most fundamental goal, which is to live. The lessons of life are lost in mantras to recite or in rules to break when they should serve as the guides we need to realize who we truly are, while boundaries become purely obstacles to overcome instead of precautions or safeguards to protect us and steer us in the right direction.

We seem determined to prove something to the world simply because we misunderstand the intimation of our insignificance, which we learn to suppress or bypass by redirecting our attention towards self-validating pursuits that sacrifice self-awareness and inner peace. Consequently, we push people away when we need them or monopolize their time when we require solitude. We also cover our pain with humour or anger and invent problems to distract us from the true things we cannot face. But mostly, we tell ourselves stories we share with one another to reinforce our delusions until they become convincingly real or mutually accepted. Eventually, the origins of these false narratives and trivial idioms become untraceable as they overtake our belief systems. In addition, we emphasize legitimate values such as tradition and diversity to infuse meaning into our lives that we also use to hide our fears like the loss of the familiar that gives us basic stability or the dread of being excluded that deprives us of our belongingness. By adopting these stories and practicing these values, we persuade ourselves that we are adults much as we do by living on our own or starting a family. Yet we can never be mature if we believe we already are just as we cannot solve a problem if we claim that it is already resolved or that we never had a problem. We have to be honest with ourselves if we want life to free us with the truth.

The continuity of sentient life and our freedom to grow rely on our adaptation as individuals and as societies, and culture provides an advanced means of adapting to the world by passing on what we learn from one person to another and from one generation to the next, without waiting for biology to imprint it into our design. Over time, we have utilized technology at a greater scale to transmit our knowledge more easily. But as we amplify our dependency on an engineered world, we find ourselves shifting from adapting to nature to adapting to technology. And as our self-reliance becomes inseparable from our intricately globalized society and increasingly virtual economy, technology itself begins to shape our culture and identity by instilling in us a superficial sense of independence and morality while continuing to embed a primordial code of hierarchical status. Caught in the immediacy of our relative productivity measured against arbitrary standards, we monitor our social standing based on the marketing of our active lives and on the breadth of our social network that not only includes the number of people we know but the quantification of their reputations in terms of popular persuasion and profitable performance. This is what our youth face as our biosocial metrics are discretely arranged to sell all of us an unquestioned blueprint for inconsequential success and synthetic happiness.

Many of us unwittingly behave like impressionable teens aspiring to the illusory autonomy of certified maturity because we are drawn to streams of events, fashions and opinions to decorate our personas and schedule our lives from the instant we awaken to the moment we retire to the chamber of our repose. As we eagerly step out the front door with the aid of our digital companion, we record our highs and lows between our departures and arrivals that provide evidence of our omnipresent existence in a programmed universe. And by publishing packaged stories of our peer-rated lifestyles, we can airbrush our psychological health and mask our heartfelt vulnerability at the risk of falling even deeper into our delusional self-importance. But even achieving greatness cannot compensate for what we have lost, including our childlike wonder and the precious few souls who reminded us of what once kept us emotionally alive. Paradoxically, we learn that success is failure, and failure is success. Hence, it is critical at this stage that we initiate our retreat from our insulated childhood to embark on a journey of existential discovery, where we hope to find our place in the world and realize the underlying reality of life. But to develop our viagnostic narrative in the search for meaning, we must dig a tunnel to our naked essence with the threat of passing through the bowels of its uncensored truth.

While the road to maturity never really ends, at some point, the crude inequity of the world will force us onto an unwanted path towards insufferable emptiness as we attempt to cross the next crucial passage of our lives. It is here where the rules we have always followed comfortably along the current of life collide with the realities of existence, and where our deepest fears and our stronger doubts will test the stability of our trust and the consistency of our purpose. When this occurs, we will need to endure the uncertainty and insignificance of life in order to confront the darkness of the truth that is essential to attaining the missing half of our inner duality and actualizing the whole of who we are. Moving into alignment means facilitating our integration with life by letting it reach a point of equilibrium, where we progressively move forward while spiritually remaining still. We can perhaps best understand this seemingly counterintuitive truth by considering how we interpret music. The silence we insert between melodic notes represents the stillness required while the notes played move forward to execute the full composition of the song. In a similar manner, it is by permitting that silence or stillness in ourselves that we unexpectedly reveal our essence.