People and their judgments

In the recent months I have been around kids for more consecutive hours than at any other time in my life, including my childhood. I have come to realize that there were probably many times when I was a kid that the adults around me were fed up and disgusted, but kept it to themselves because I was a kid.

The only reason you feel at ease around people at all is because you don’t really stop to think about how you might come across to them. You have grown out of your self-consciousness if indeed you ever had any. Your childhood was before you were aware of the concept, were aware even of who you were and the fact that there was indeed a right way for you to act and a wrong way.

People judge. All people do. They use their opinions of you to escape from the circumstances of their lives. They assess you in order to find a flaw so that they can feel that they are superior to you, or at least not your inferior. Only the man in trouble does not judge, becoming so swallowed up in his circumstances that he does not care about anything beyond himself.

The criteria varies based on how much of life you have seen. The "amount" of life is not measured in quantity of years but breadth of experience, how much of the range of possible human events have you seen? You grow up in a small-town all your references are limited to that small town. You cannot conceive of life on the outside, but you don’t know it, you don’t know how limited your imagination is.

The Life Skill of Maturity

The word "immaturity" can, in certain contexts, conjure up a picture of childlike innocence. Toilet humor, for instance, is "immature", but it brings back memories of youthful innocence and the time when bodily functions were still novel. It can make you laugh because it's juvenile and nostalgic.

There is another kind of immaturity that is not at all pleasant. It is that of people who have not learned how to handle life. This is the teenage, pubescent kind.

These are people who in their thirties and forties still have tantrums, still have issues dealing reasonably with others, and controlling their emotions.

Immature people are a burden to themselves and to the people who get involved in relationships with them. Never learning how to escape your adolescence and get into adulthood is a kind of retardation, a kind of defect.
If you are one of these people, you probably won’t know what I am talking about. You probably would not read this far down the page either.

Some Simple, Life-Changing Experiences

So you want a life-changing experience, huh? You want to experience something new and magical? You don't have to climb Everest for your life-lessons and wisdom. In fact, if there is anything that life wants to do at any given time is change. It can do so dramatically without going to a whole lot of trouble. Here are a few simple things you can do to alter your perspective and gain insight. 


1) Watching two people having sex in front you, in real life
It changes how you think about sex, humans, and human relationships forever, suddenly everything seems less magical and special and you are left with the impression of the general lowness of the human species. The word “rutting” is what best describes the live human sex-act.

2) Being homeless
I mean the destitute kind of homeless, not the kind where you move back in with your mom. It doesn't make you a nicer person, it doesn't make you stronger, but even 2 or 3 nights on the street will give you an appreciation for things that most people take for granted, and open up a little empathy for your fellow man. Note: any empathy you gain will be lost soon after you find someplace decent to live.

3) Smoking (cigarettes)
You become part of a specific demographic that cuts through racial and age-boundaries. More and more smokers are becoming a tight-knit community bound by nicotine addiction and pariah-status. It's like becoming a Christian in a Muslim country. You meet new people who give you the benefit of the doubt even if you are of a different race. If you happen to be black, non-black people know you want that cigarette more than you wan to rob them. If you happen to be an older person, they look up to you, because you know how to smoke without getting ashes on yourself. If you happen to be a chick, maybe they have a shot since non-smoking guys find them disgusting, and so on.

4) Russian roulette
There is nothing like having a loaded gun pointed at you with the safety off, even when you know that the trigger will not be pulled, you know that you are a millisecond away from eternity. Turn that up a notch by actually pulling that trigger yourself and all your doubts about the meaning of life and whether you really want to be here or not will be solved instantly. If you don't have access to a gun, driving down an unfamiliar country road at night with your headlights off is an acceptable substitute.

5) Get your ass kicked 
Trust me, it's not difficult to find someone who will do this for free, but it's best if it happens spontaneously, meaning that somebody who really wants to do it, just opens up and beats you down when you least expect it. First of all it gives you motivation for getting in shape, but it also makes you realize that there are people out there who hate your guts, that humanity has people in it who are stronger and more dangerous than you, and who actively want to hurt you. You see your vulnerabilities, you learn to distrust other people, and most of all it makes you want to compensate by working really hard at everything.