At sixteen I was stupid, confused and indecisive. At twenty-five I was wise, self-confident, prepossessing and assertive. At forty-five I am stupid, confused, insecure and indecisive. Who would have supposed that maturity is only a short break in adolescence?
Interpretation
Maturity is often temporary, as the complexities of life can lead to confusion and insecurity at any age.
This quote by Jules Feiffer reflects the irony of maturity, suggesting that while we may gain confidence and wisdom with age, we can also revert back to feelings of confusion and indecisiveness at different stages in life. It highlights that personal growth is not linear, and that the challenges of adulthood can feel akin to the struggles faced during adolescence, reminding us that self-awareness can be a fluctuating experience.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a discussion about the complexities of adulthood among friends.
Be warned against all 'good' advice because 'good' advice is necessarily 'safe' advice, and though it will undoubtedly follow a sane pattern, it will very likely lead one into total sterility--one of the crushing problems of our time.
Those spacious regions where our fancies roam,_x000D_ _x000D_ Pain'd by the past, expecting ills to come,_x000D_ _x000D_ In some dread moment, by the fates assign'd,_x000D_ _x000D_ Shall pass away, nor leave a rack behind;_x000D_ _x000D_ And Time's revolving wheels shall lose at last_x000D_ _x000D_ The speed that spins the future and the past:_x000D_ _x000D_ And, sovereign of an undisputed throne,_x000D_ _x000D_ Awful eternity shall reign alone.
The resistance to the unpleasant situation is the root of suffering.
One thin's sure and nothing's surer The rich get richer and the poor get - children. In the meantime, In between time...
Still seems it strange, that thou shouldst live forever? Is it less strange, that thou shouldst live at all? This is a miracle; and that no more.
One of the great privileges of having grown up in a middle-class literary English household, but having gone to school in the front lines in Southeast London, was that I became half-street-urchin and half-good-boy at home. I knew that dichotomy was possible.
There are arguments for atheism, and they do not depend, and never did depend, upon science. They are arguable enough, as far as they go, upon a general survey of life; only it happens to be a superficial survey of life.
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