I know I haven't been very active here lately, but I want to try again. I don't know, it seems like every time I try to come back something comes up, a situation happens, and I get pulled away from writing. And in the blink of an eye, the months fly by. But I don't want to stop writing, I want to continue writing. At least for now, let's see how it goes.
Anyway, it seems that life is what happens, anyway, when we are planning what to do. It's like that phrase, man plans, God laughs.
Some time ago I was thinking about maturity and how I should mature in certain aspects of my life. And the truth is, I don't know why I was interested in that, now I see it as less important. But still, as I see it, and I'm not the most knowledgeable person on the subject, maturity is something that happens to you. Or maybe I don't know if maturity is the right word, but evolution.
Because in life certain things will happen and certain situations will happen that will make you mature, make you evolve. It is not something planned by you, at least not for the most part. There will be certain somewhat difficult events that will happen that will make you grow and change. It's not something that strokes your ego to make you feel good, “Oh, look how mature I am, how nice,” nothing like that, at least not in my case. It's more like difficult situations where you probably make a lot of mistakes - again, it's not pleasing to the ego, it's terrifying to it, in fact - and you keep making mistakes, but you just can't do anything else. That is, there is no other option. You can't go back. It's not just like you can fail and give up. That option disappears. You miss and miss and miss, until finally, at some point, you get it. At some point, you have to get it.
You can try to fail, try to give up, but not for too long. That's just another thing you can try. Because, I read comments, once, on a Tao forum, (and I know I'm digressing a bit) about how if the Tao is “all-encompassing”, I can basically do anything like just sit and be lazy and I'd be following the path anyway. And of course, I am not an expert on Taoism, nor do I want to diverge the subject, but my thought was “Oh, if it is ‘all-encompassing’ and you can do anything, it is also ‘all-encompassing’ to give you any result, even if that result does not please you.” But I also thought about the following: If you want to just be lazy (and I'll avoid giving advice here) one could just try and be lazy for a while, and what will happen, I think, is that, eventually, one will realize that that lifestyle doesn't satisfy you, at least not at the deepest level. Surely, you can be lazy for a while, but all your life? I don't think you can find satisfaction in that.
I think that, contradictorily, if one tries to put aside all the attempts one makes to do what one “should” do, one will realize why one tries to do what is supposed one should do, because the option of simply staying behind is simply not a considerable option.
You can try to be lazy if you want, but you won't like the result. After a while, you'll see why you're trying not to be. That's my opinion about it. Of course, you can relax a little bit, not make a big deal out of it, and be calm, but that doesn't mean you won't move on. And of course, I'm using laziness as an example, it's not just laziness, it's any over-indulgence, vices, or anything else that keeps you in your comfort zone.
At some point things will happen that will make you leave out there, and you won't have the option to go back. Then you naturally evolve and become more mature. And one begins to understand and become more familiar with those rules created by the ancestors. It's not that we can just do anything. Well, we can, but look at the result. It's not simply that our ancestors wanted to make all these rules to make the world somehow boring. These rules are not just empty, they have meaning.
It's like the child who thinks that when he grows up he will just eat cake because he doesn't like vegetables. As an adult, he knows that it doesn't benefit him. Besides, his body wouldn't feel good eating so much unhealthy food. So something tells him.
Of course, this maturity is seen in different ways, in different people, according to their different experiences and their own diversity. We are not all on the same path, even though we may have the same destiny. But at some point you evolve, and you don't feel the same doing the things you did before.
But yes, I think maturity is something that happens to you, at some point life doesn't care about anything and pushes you into the water, and by that time, you better learn to swim. It's not that you have to finish struggling with these things to then live, but in large part, life is these struggles. So, it's not just about focusing on the destination, but it can also be good to learn to be content during the journey.
But hey, these experiences shape us. In a sense, it's like enlisting in the army. At first, the mind may think how great it would be to be a strong and powerful warrior. But when the war starts, it doesn't like the idea anymore. The mind wants to be a warrior but does not like war.
But you can't choose on this, since, is there another option? You have to keep going.
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