Growth: The Psychology of A Lullaby

Allow me to take inventory now that we have traveled so far. We have observed that childhood and adulthood are opposed when viewed as temporal phenomena. A person of thirty is no longer a child in the sense that he has become too much, had too many opportunities to be considered a child. Yet, if we reflect upon ourselves we noted that childhood and adulthood are less definitively related. Neither memories nor dreams entail compatibility or opposition between being a child and being an adult. In this light, childhood and adulthood behave like qualitative states of being. Qualities are always more elusive than quantities and their definitions tend to be suspect. Much thought needs to be exerted to distinguish qualities. One never knows them for certain, but rather gets a taste for them.

Being obligated to meditate further on aging as a quality, let us try to differentiate further. What are some of the commonplace understandings of our subject? A child is ignorant, prone to self-gratification, and free from responsibility. An adult is rational, prone to self-sacrifice, and burdened by duties. Children are dreamers. Adults are realists. A child will cry when he does not get his way. An adult has learned to control his emotions in disagreeable circumstances. Children are clumsy. Adults are careful. A child is helpless. An adult is autonomous. A child needs help even to go to sleep. An adult can go to sleep on her own.

Is there no common ground amongst the prejudices? Why is it that when we looked at a given man's life we saw subtle transitions but when we consider conventional wisdom all we see are contrasts once more? Could it be that conventional wisdom is propounded by adults, a party interested in its own image?

From our list, it appears that childhood is inferior to adulthood. What could a child have that is superior to her older counterpart? I must interject and suggest that the child has a great gift in innocence. The pride in adults thinks it is better to be credited than to be blameless. They (and I with them) need to admit that it is always better to be blameless than to be blamed and often better to be blameless than to be credited.

To be innocent, one must not have done something. Children are innocent for at least two reasons: (1) they do not do the same sort of things adults do and (2) they do not know as much as adults do. With increased autonomy comes greater trust--trust in personal and professional relationships. Children, being largely dependent, are saved from the opportunity to do wrong. With increased autonomy comes greater awareness--awareness of morals and mortals (i.e., one's contemporaries). Children, being largely dependent, are saved from the knowledge of doing wrong. It is the childishness of children, so frequently used to disparage adults, that allows them to be so innocent. It is the maturity of adults, so frequently used to commend children, that allows them to be so often guilty.

Childhood has its weaknesses and dangers. Conventional wisdom speaks to those. It is a different sort of dangerous to get older though, and yet we must get older.

These hands that type were once too small and confusedly operated to communicate through words. God willing, they will someday be too contorted and perhaps confusedly operated to communicate through words again. I pass through this process. We all do. Yet, the hands remain our own and the same. How are they the same? In a distant way, like the first prototypes of technologies relate to today's state of the art? Or intimately like an old pine floor with a new coat of wax on it?

When a baby is displeased, is crying and unsettled, a loving parent takes her up into her arms. She walks with her child, dips her shoulders, and rhythmically rocks her. The baby is lulled by the expectations of the movement and their certain fulfillment. Now the move to the left; now the move to the right. If need be, she whispers sweet shushes and reaffirms serenity with words. The baby knows both only by their calming affect. Now the baby sleeps and the parent is pleased. Finally, the struggling child rests. But--what if the child wanted food? What if the child had soiled herself? What if she was pained by the onset of a fever? The benign, dreamy face masks the original problem.

Can an adult be lulled to sleep? I concede that he or she is often unsettled and would be well-pleased by a lullaby, but it is impossible. An adult is too sophisticated, too self-conscious, to be tricked by the gentle whispers of nonsense. A man or woman cannot easily be taken up into the arms of a loving parent. The cause of distress if far more complex, weighty, and intransigent--in a word, far more adult.

What about alternatives? Is there no way to rock an adult to sleep in a metaphorical way? Have they absolutely outgrown being coddled, or could there be a more sophisticated form? Is there now a different sort of rocking device--a surrogate parent?

A common experience among people transitioning from dependence to independence is persistent doubt. A person develops, matures, grows, physically and mentally, but not without restriction. Diet, gravity, and self-awareness all hinder the process of growth. A young man or women is frequently riddled by self-doubt. An undercurrent surges beneath the placid surface. Is this a good way to make a living? Is this what I was meant to do? Where am I going? An adult is bound to tear up and kick if they reflect much longer on this uncertain state. Somewhere they know there are needs going unmet, but it would be so difficult to meet them. It would be much easier to be distracted. Now our young man or woman wants to be put to sleep, in the disarmed reality of unconsciousness.

Give a person a routine, and he will be calmed. He has his definition; he knows the floor he is at. He thinks of himself as a worker. There is a position on his identification badge that fixes him in place. The rhythm of adulthood mollifies him. A morning cup of coffee is his new pacifier. The bumps along the commute provide the rocking motion. Now the acceleration to gain access to the needed lane; now the deceleration to abide by the traffic light's command. Discomfort slinks back. What is now and pressing upon him is the cold but tight embrace of worldly responsibility. Those questions, which still lack answers, are displaced. The goals are immediate: pack a lunch, check the messages, file the papers, write the letter, clean the area. They are easily completed. Oh grace of grace--how they replenish! The world marches on and the inbox fills and refills. There is no time to consider discomfort--there is work to be done. All the while, the potential elevator drops.

Is there anything more dangerous for an adult than to be lulled when he needs to be awake? It is a state that precipitates a crash.

If a gentle woman were to come upon the worker who is at rest while being so active, addressed him by name, and asked whether he was awake--what would the man answer? "What a silly question--if I could answer, I must be awake. I am surely awake for I can tell you as much." She would then ask the follow up question: who is it that answers thus--the worker or the man? Now she has cornered him. He would pause and furrow his brow. "It has been so long since I recognized the difference, but you ask an apt question. For long ago, when I began this routine--I told myself, "This is what a person must do in an age like ours. I will take up this routine and take up the designation of worker, but it will not be me. No, I will keep myself neatly tucked away. I am tired and distressed. I will let my self rest and the worker in me will take over. I will return upon retirement and be full of energy and ready to address what ails me. Now here I am, frail and tucked in my sheets, and you have awoken me though I thought I was already awake. I was rocked to sleep and lost consciousness of my self in the process. Where is the worker now? Oh dreadful thought--that I was him this whole time!"

The gentle woman would pat him on the head, smooth over his disheveled curls, and explain to him that a person can never really be free from his self. Integrity describes a person's life even if he tries to disintegrate because a person is always the same book even when the chapter changes. The hand grows, but it remains at bottom the same hand.

Now those unanswered questions are free to return. Now he feels anxious. Now the tears begin to well. Woe to him whose elevator of actuality door opens at such a moment!

It would be so easy, so secure, if we could simply be content in being adults. Surely membership in such a group demands respect, both from self and others. Alas, it is not so easy. It is a dangerous group to be a part of.

--
Our analysis is far from complete. Books could be written on the subject and still the qualitative difference would remain as vague. Qualities are indiscrete, making the study of them at once frustrating and rewarding.

We have made many observations that the audience is free to remember or forget. From within thought, we may peer into growth's essence. We see a process of becoming. Growth is at once an automatic and perilous process. It is automatic like the progression of time; it is perilous like the firing of clay. From within life, we see growth in its existence. We reflect on our selves changing and remaining the same. We recall the centrality of ideals concerning a person's development.

Childhood is not devoid of value nor is adulthood abundant in it. How the two stages are related is neither inscrutable nor obvious. If given time, a child will become an adult. Attention is required along the way lest the child become something less laudable than the ideal of maturity suggests.

On Habits

An existing individual is more likely to do something he has done before than something he has never done. The simple psychological fact is the mechanism of habit. A choice is easier to make when it has been made before. To make a single good choice has a multiplied benefit. Could there be any detriment done by habit?

A good woman does good actions without serious deliberation. She does them by second nature. What are we to think about such a lackadaisical handling of the good? Is it not more meritorious, as Kant observed, for a man of poor character to do something benevolent? In so doing, he fought against his own habits, pushed up the slope of his character, and to the surprise of his peers, overcame his deprivation.

(A funny thing about merit is that on Earth it is only of consequence when it is noticed by contemporaries. What is likely to be noticed by contemporaries of questionable character is more often that which surprises than that which is good. The contingency of public opinion is a reason to avoid incorporating it as a criterion.)

Given that habit can become less passionate and thereby less owned by the habit-holder, must it? Can one avoid it? Can one make the same choice over time and not make it less? If we were to watch a Muslim pray five times a day every day of his life since he reached religious maturity, what would we think of the quality of his prayers on his last day? There is no outward sign of an increase or decrease in devotion, so my judgment drawn from appearances alone would be empty conjecture. If you asked the man, "Do you love Allah more now or when you were twenty?" and the man responded, "I have always striven to love Allah as much as I can," would you believe him? Or, rather, knowing what you do about human psychology and our penchant for habit and habit's slant towards lifeless formalism, would you think him guilty of self-deception?

In a world where there is no chance for habit to be passionate, there is no chance for personal integrity.

A woman walks into her classroom early on the first day of the semester. All of the desks are options for her. She chooses the third one from the right in the second row because it was one of two left-handed desks and was nearest to the front. Everyone else fills in around her as the start of class draws near. The next class, she heads for the third desk from the right in the second row. She walks towards it and take her seat without hesitation.

What was a benefit of habit in the mundane realm (i.e., that it is something thoughtlessly chosen) is a hindrance in the lofty realm. When relating to objects of love, it would be despicable to do so thoughtlessly, without branding the moment with one's mark. To love God automatically is not to love God.

How can we persist in making the same choices without emaciating them in the lofty realm? How can a man pray the same prayer--consisting of words he did not write--without making it lifeless? Through concentration. Just as the woman scanning the room for the first time sees the empty desks as possibilities, so the man who prays in the awareness of what else he could be doing or saying--these individuals choose with vitality. Though it is not natural to sustain an awareness of the possible when the same situation has been considered before, it is not impossible. Through concentration, we ennoble the lofty realm saying, "I choose this and not that," despite this being chosen before. The person who knows he so chooses lives more. While nature tries to lull her asleep, she fights to stay awake.

The Trappings of Falseness

1: "What do you make of habits? Do you believe in them?"
2: "What do you mean 'believe in them'?"
1: "Do you think people are 'creatures of habit,' as they say? I mean, do you think habits play a central role in an individual's life?"
2: "I suppose so, yes. Students sit in the same seats in classes without seating charts because they are comfortable with the seat they first sat in. It's the path of least resistance. Do what you've done before because you already know how to do it. You have to designate less thought to the action. We all favor autopilot."
1: "Right. I couldn't agree more. Does that fact scare you, though--our penchant for autopilot, that is?"
2: "Not really. It doesn't seem to me like it's any better or worse than anything else that is a common human trait. The phenomenon of forming habits is neutral because you could just as easily form a good habit as much as a bad habit. There's nothing about habits in the abstract that should scare anyone."
1: "In the abstract, right. Again, I am with you. But what about in the particular, what about for you or me? When we form habits, is it really so neutral? I'm not so convinced. Sure we have many benign habits, like the chair-sitting you mentioned. But habits are the grease that makes slopes so slippery."
2: "No. Slopes are slippery because people are given to being recalibrated so often. We like novelty so much--or loath staleness, whichever--that our scales are frequently being zeroed, as it were. Take romantic love, for instance. Everyone knows about honeymoons and their "wearing off." Infatuation leads to institutionalization, and then love is dead. Was the relationship any different? Not necessarily. The only thing that definitely changed was the fact that each person became comfortable, got used to it, and then we hardly take notice of those things we once found endearing. So we need more all the time. And porn--everyone whose ever been caught in the web of porn knows you start with Sears catalogs and end with snuff films. It's like hunger. You have to keep eating, more and more and more--because you are a grist. So, you start walking downhill, and that gets boring, then you start jogging, and that gets boring, then you start running--and before you know it you're buttering up your sneakers and trying to ski down that slope. That's how slopes get slippery."
1: "I see your point. But habituation has a hand in it..."
2: "You know slippery slopes are logical fallacies, right?"
1: "Logical fallacies, yes. But I am talking about human nature, where logical fallacies become actionable. And I am trying to make an ethical observation if you would only indulge me."
2: "By all means, continue. I was only making sure you weren't confused from the start."
1: "It's interesting you should put it thus. Because that is what frightens me so much about people being creatures of habit. Err once, and you're more likely to err again. And err consistently in one area of life, i.e., make a habit of it--and you'll make errors in another area of life. And then, you find yourself sliding uncontrollably. Or rather, you would find yourself sliding if you could even recognize motion anymore. But if you start in a confused state--though you think you are thinking clearly because it seems to you like any other accurate thought you have experienced--well...that just damning. Right?"
2: "I'm sorry. I can't agree. I'll grant you that if you don't understand arithmetic, you'll be poor at algebra. I agree that a erroneous pattern of mathematical thought will increase the likelihood of all you mathematical thoughts--but I hardly see how it has any bearing on your aesthetic thoughts, say."
1: "Think of falseness as a fatal disease. Maybe it starts in the kidneys, but it progresses throughout the whole body until you're dead. Health engenders health, illness, illness."
2: "Just because you break your arm doesn't mean you won't be able to think straight anymore."
1: "That's silly--and a red herring. I'm not saying that a illness in one spot will engender illness in another given spot. I'm saying that it tends to propagate though, if left untreated."
2: "I hardly think the body is an analogy for the mind. The mind isn't so interrelated."
1: "Well, humans aren't so compartmentalized as you take them to be."
2: "So, you're telling me that if I am wrong in my estimation of what the good life is--since you wanted to bring ethics in--then I am going to be wrong in my scientific investigations? I'm sorry. I don't think habits have that much sway."
1: "If you are wrong about something so fundamental, how could you ever be right about anything--short of being right by accident?"
2: "There are plenty of asshole scientists and ignorant poets who, though excelling in one area of life, are off base in another area."
1: "Of course, of course. I'm not talking about guarantees, here. Perhaps even so much emphasis on forming good writing habits, for instance, depletes the energy needed for forming good social habits. Nevertheless, let falsity in somewhere and I think you ruin your own credibility. And now we have full warrant to be paranoid, because falsity and truth hardly seem different to the person holding the beliefs--provided that have an equal amount of conviction."
2: "So, you want everyone to excel at everything, only accept that truth everywhere, and never function on hypotheses and hunches?"
1: "I just want everyone to be careful about everything they do, because everything takes us one step closer to habits. And bad habits have a way of multiplying."
2: "Well--I find this desire of yours a hopeless one. Why emphasize something that you yourself admit escapes our own scrutiny?"
1: "Well, it doesn't have to escape our scrutiny, it just does. Because we have formed a habit of being credulous. If you pause and reflect on what you do and why often enough, if you try to pay attention to that conglomeration of your self--heart, mind, body, etc.--then you'd have a better nose for falsity."
2: "I have better things to do than stop all my forward momentum and reflect all the time."
1: "So you'd rather have more beliefs and risk them being false, act on more principles and risk them being false--than have fewer ones with greater assurance of truth?"
2: "What is this assurance of truth nonsense, and all this talk about 'having a nose' and listening to your 'heart'? That's all drivel. You said yourself you can't tell, and I agree with you. Falsity feels like truth sometimes."
1: "Yes. But that's because you want it to be."
2: "What? No. I don't want the world to be as it is, but I take it like I see it just the same."
1: "Not all error is willful. I'm not speaking clearly. Sometimes error is a result of the force of habit. And so we return to my point. Perhaps your 'taking' of the world is as it is because that's the way the world hit you a long time ago and now you can't help talking it otherwise. Because it practically unquestioned by you. And now you can't discern between truth and fiction."
2: "Oh, please! Let's not start dragging armchair psychology into this."
1: "Fine, fine... how are your classes going?"