75. GROWING UP

When we are young children our parents fulfill every need and define our world in what seems to us as absolutes. We never again have it so simple, easy, or well packaged. Growing up and away from that secure nest is no small task. Some fight it to their dying breath.
 
As a child we feel we are the center of other people's universes. Parents, relatives, teachers, and other adults create that self-centeredmess (spelled correctly) with their love and nurturing. Although that is important to our early development, we can't let it go to our heads. Unfortunately, it's easy to get comfortable with the notion that everything is about us. Growing up means coming to understand that it is not.
 
As our bodies and brains mature, our horizons should stretch. Questions we once did not have will come to haunt us with uncertainty. If we ignore these new and indefinite horizons and questions, we remain intellectually a child. It is no better to accede to society's accepted answers and subjugate ourselves to 'experts.' We remain children when we pirouette around our responsibility to seek truth by looking for a sufficient payload of unjustified beliefs to keep everything well defined and sure. Substituting experts and the consensus view for our parents is just like moving back home. We leave our genetic mommies and daddies and move in with the mommies and daddies society puts in their place.
 
Growing up for real means to use our own mind and heart to search for as many answers as we can, always remaining open to truth, and conceding that there are some things we may never fully understand.
 
On any clear night look into the sky. It should be a humbling experience and give perspective. The Earth is just a small planet in just one galaxy among millions. Our planet receives only 2 billionths of the light energy from our average star/sun and there are trillions of suns in the universe. We are infinitesimally puny in the greater scheme of things. No matter how much we would like to think so, it is ridiculous on its face to assume we are the focus of the universe.
 
Adulthood means humility and admitting human ignorance. There are no omniscient moms, dads, experts, or other authority figures we can rely upon for all the answers. When humans proceed as if they know everything, as if their brain speck defines the universe, harm results. War, disease, oppression, poverty, and environmental degradation can all be linked back to those who position themselves as having authority and truth, and to millions of complicit human lemmings who let others be their surrogate mommies and daddies.

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​Adulthood is a continuing process requiring search, openness, change, and self-reliance. It means malleability and a willingness to put the SOLVER principles first in life. It will never be as easy as just taking another's word for it, regardless of their credentials. Since belief is the seed from which all human activity, good or bad, arises, each of us must take responsibility for developing our own humble and reasoned philosophy of life. We must be especially wary of any unexamined belief that owes its existence to the mere words of another frail and faulty human. We are really not free to embrace any belief we fancy any more than we are free to believe two plus two equals seven. (This timely and interesting idea that—we are really not free to believe as we choose—is developed fully in the companion book.)
 
If we let our conscience and our desire for truth guide us, and we recognize that the search for truth is a continuing endeavor, we have the best hope for a better world, and a grown up and better us.