The Physiological versus the Spiritual Dimensions of Growth

A crazed soccer mom keyed my car today. I've never had my car keyed before, and it made me sad that it happened to my shiny new car instead of the dull old one. While discussing the incident with a friend, he made a rather insightful statement. He said, and I paraphrase, Just because someone looks like an adult doesn't mean he/she actually is one. This seems obvious, especially considering the circumstances, but I had never really thought about this concept deeply.

When I worked at Planned Parenthood, I would see tens of women a day - women of all different ages and backgrounds. Occasionally, I would see women whose outside age clearly did not match their inside age. And this goes beyond the all too common moronic 19-23-year-olds who simply haven't been paying attention for the past 19-23 years. I remember a 15-year-old of whom I was envious. She seemed so confident, self-assured and at ease with herself and the world around her. She knew all about her body and reproductive health - had it all covered. She was fully responsible for her functioning existence on this planet. I was awestruck. Then there was the occasional 40-year-old who didn't know how pregnancy and/or STDs worked, and worse, didn't care.

So anyway, my friend's comment made me think about what aging actually is. We live in a culture that is very physically ageist. Commercials and ads bombard our televisions and magazines with anti-aging creams and make-up. Even teeth-whitening products use age as a selling point...like my teeth weren't yellow when I was twelve! Of what are they trying to convince us? If we can stave off wrinkles, we can stave off death? All physical signs of aging reveal is that our bodies are wearing out, and eventually they will break down entirely never to restart. This is life. This is how it works.

But what of the spiritual dimension of aging? What does it mean to age spiritually? Buddhists, Hindus and various other world religions believe that spiritual aging, or rather development, occurs over the course of many lifetimes, not just one. The metaphors we use to discuss spiritual aging indicate an upward movement, a progression, a completion. We speak of development and of growth. When we speak of physical aging, metaphors imply a downward movement or decay. Thus it only makes sense that, if souls exist, they should ascend (to heaven, another life, nirvana, etc.) as our bodies are interred.

So what constitutes someone's actual age? The number of years they've been on the planet utilizing their current body? How many wrinkles they have on their face or age spots on their hands? Or is it what they've learned, whether they've been paying attention, whether they and the world around them have benefited from the lessons they've mastered? What happens when you meet a woman with a leathery complexion and "mom jeans" complete with a lower-abdominal pooch who says she's 27? What happens when you cross paths with a road-rager who stalks you through a parking lot, screaming at you out of her driver window, then keys your car as soon as you're out of sight for accidentally cutting her off due to her own poor driving skills?

When we think of words like "adult" or "grown-up", certain concepts accompany these terms. There is functional maturity: living on one's own, paying bills, mortgages, taking out life insurance policies, birthing smaller versions of oneself, buying a car, etc. Then there's emotional/intellectual maturity (or whatever you want to call it): understanding personal responsibility, learning how to maneuver gracefully through a world filled with lots of very different people, dealing gracefully with anger and frustration, learning what it really means to love, etc. The latter type of maturity is obviously much more challenging than the former. Some people, people who are perpetually taken care of by the men in their lives or by Mommy and Daddy, and then Mommy and Daddy's money when Mommy and Daddy die, never achieve either state of maturity. Many more people never achieve the latter. Can they be considered "adults"? "Grown-ups"? Some may say, if they walk like ducks and talk like ducks...But is this truly the case? Or are they just children in grown-up suits?

A friend and colleague of mine counts her students absent when they are physically in class but mentally elsewhere. If they are in their seats but texting their friends, sleeping or listening to their Ipods, they are counted absent...because, figuratively speaking, they are. So if a person has physically aged but remained figuratively absent his/her entire life, has this person truly lived, truly aged, truly grown up? We speak of legally mentally challenged individuals as having the brain of, say, a 6-year-old. But aren't there a lot of "adults" out there with the emotional maturity of a 6-year-old? My contention is that you are not only as old as you feel, but you are also as old as you act on a consistent basis. If you've been on the planet for 37 years and haven't learned a damn thing, you can hardly be called a 37-year-old. Nonetheless, since you have technically been on the planet for 37 years, you can and should be held accountable for those 37 years. Students who accumulate an outrageous number of absences, physically or figuratively, fail their classes. They are held accountable. A physical 37-year-old who is 4 on the inside should nevertheless be held accountable. And for some strange reason, I have faith that karma will do the trick.