I've been considering the question of why so many people who matured physically and mentally decades ago, never managed to grow up emotionally. This seems to be especially true of the demographic in which I was raised – the exciting and neurotic world of actors, dancers, musicians and writers.
Creative artists derive inspiration directly from the Child part of their minds, the realm of imagination, dreams, fantasy and magic. We are trained to strengthen that intuitive part of ourselves, and to listen to it.
Sadly though, the downside of that training is that we now have people in their 70's who respond to life as though they were children, unable to separate fact from fiction. Such behaviors are no longer attractive or helpful. They can range from irritating but minor things like trying to hold your pee until the TV show is over, to the extreme case where an aging person refuses to pre-plan for the inevitability of death, believing that such an event won't have to happen to him.
Death is the most difficult concept for the Child mind to accept – that is, at least, its own death. Every fiber of its being is convinced that, regardless of how many other people have died in the past, it can figure out a way to avoid it. One of those ways is to cry and emphasize one's weakness in a bid for sympathy – a commonly shared practice among people of the feminine persuasion.
My wife tells me that when she was quite young, she discovered that crying could get her almost anything she wanted. Authority figures would make exceptions for her. Police officers would tear up tickets. Young professors would let her leave class early if she wept and said she was getting her period. With such a record of successes, it's only logical that many women would continue this lifetime behavior. If you cry enough, maybe the Grim Reaper himself will relent and let you go! It's worked with other things.
The Child mind will not accept responsibility for anything. When instructed to practice a discipline which it hates, it will promise but will later manufacture reasons for why it wasn't able to get to it this time. The fact is, it just didn't want to.
Childishness is one thing. Memory loss is something much more serious, and is a major concern for people my age. The ability to remember things clearly indicates a healthy mentality. But sometimes the memory chip can suffer power outages, and the mind can stutter like a frozen-up computer that is trying to buffer. It's worse than embarrassing; it's scary.
It also presents a philosophical and moral question: Assuming that at the time you performed an action you were clearly aware of the choice you were making and would normally be responsible for its outcome, can you still be held responsible for that choice if you no longer remember making it? The Child mind wants to believe that you can't be - that amnesia will give you a free pass to evade responsibility for your decisions. When asked why you haven't done something you promised to do, or why you behaved in a bizarre manner that inconvenienced a lot of other people, if you can honestly reply, “I don't remember,” it gets you off the hook.
But is that really how it works?
I now have a deeper appreciation for the natural workings of Cause and Effect which Hindus call Karma and Wiccans refer to as the Law of Three. My new insight is that the real importance of this principle lies in what it has to tell us about memory.
Karma comes along and says to the responsibility-shirking Child mind, “Guess what? Even though you don't remember that past life in which you behaved like an asshole and caused pain to so many, you are still responsible for your actions. Spiritual law dictates that the one who performed the Action must, in the fullness of time, experience the Reaction – no matter how long it takes, and regardless of whether he has any memory of it at all.”
I used to argue that Karma made no sense, because how can you learn anything from actions you can't even remember? But I now perceive that the details are not important...that the great overriding purpose of Karma is to teach us how to grow up. Maturity lies in taking responsibility. The emotionally mature individual says, “I accept responsibility for my own Karma. My present situation is the result of all my past choices and actions. Nobody else is responsible.”
When you can say that (and if you've never tried it before, you will find it amazingly difficult), you will uncover an astonishing reservoir of inner strength. Because, you see, as long as it wasn't your fault there was nothing you could do about it; you just had to suffer. But when you assume responsibility for creating the beast (like Dr. Morbius in Forbidden Planet), you suddenly realize how incredibly powerful you really are. Sometimes you can change the situation and make the beast go away. Sometimes you can't make it go away at all. But calmly facing the beast full-on, accepting it as your own creation and inviting it to do its worst, is ultimately empowering.
Like a medieval castle, your body has to collapse when it's overwhelmed. But emotionally, you can attain fearlessness. And what power in the universe can triumph over a mind that is fearless?