I don’t really try to be positive or negative, I just try to put threads in the right forums.
I have a thought on levels of maturity: there are three levels of maturity to be exact:
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The immature act immaturely because they can’t help it–they’re like children with no sense of self-control or ability to rise above petty issues.
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Then there’s the next level of maturity: gaining the ability to act mature but feeling compelled to do so at all times because “that’s what mature people do.”
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Knowing when to act mature and when not to–knowing that maturity is not compulsory but a choice–and that there are times to act like a kid and times to be a grown up.
(This is like Nietzsche’s camel, lion, and child, don’t you think?)
IOW, the most mature people will sometimes act immaturely.
This was an instance of me acting immaturely (placing it in sandbox made it appropriate… I think ).
I think we can raise it out of the gutter and make it into a more mature discussion though (maybe even convince the mods to move it to philosophy ). Let me try this:
You’re point seems to be that human beings–indeed, maybe animals in general–are not neatly pigeon holed into tidy “alpha” and “beta” categories, that we are a lot more versatile, malleable, and multi-dimensional than that. I agree. But in my 40 years of experience (yes I’m 40), I swear to God there are strains of people who are just categorically different from each other (and not in openly visible ways like race or sex). I think there are different genetic lines whose phenotype manifests as different brain wirings, or different algorithms running on those brains–you know, things that don’t show up on a continuous spectrum–such that there are those who instinctively know how to dominate (alpha) and those who are oblivious and submissive (beta). Again, this is just based on suspicion and not evidence, but my experience in life would suggest this is true.
^ Can we start with that?