Development

I write this in light of the recent celebration of my 25 years that I have lived on this earth. It is a reflection that has certainly been made more poignant because of this important landmark, I think.

With each passing day in my life I have come to realise the nature of my development as an individual. I mean to say that I have come to comprehend that the person I am now is not—and I can say this with certitude—the person I was 10 years ago, and it will likely not be the person I will be 10 years from now. Moreover, I now understand that within the past 10 or so years it has been the case that I have progressed through particular discernible phases or stages—epochs has a nice ring to it—of development. They have been multiple and varied, some having occurred concurrently with others and some that are still ongoing.

Details of these epochs would require a separate posting altogether, one for each in fact, but to give just two examples: The first, nebulously put: I have come to appreciate the power in infusing oneself with a fear-depriving "blood-fire"—in other words, the value in destroying fear. And the second: What love means to me and what makes love, "love", as in the singular kind of love. (This one is definitely labelled "work in progress".) The first is personal and social, perhaps even political. The second is more philosophical, emotional, psychological—definitely more complex. But regardless of what the epochs in themselves are, the common factor is that they are characterised by extended periods of time (being developed, contemplated, wrestled with, engendered, etc.) and, most importantly, that they are integral facets of the person who I have been becoming, have become and will become.

Stagnation is something I have come to resist in my life; this resistance has become a part of my essential make-up. This is perhaps what I am concluding from this present contemplation. This, and relatedly, that "growing up" is something that does not have a terminal point. Most of us will likely have changed as we grow or grew out of adolescence, but I do not believe the journey ends once we have "grown up" in the typical sense. The whole affair is like a can of paint constantly being mixed with a variety of colours being added every now and then. And even if the paint were to turn black, as would eventually happen with the inclusion of all colours, the mix itself would be dumped from the can and the constant mixing begun anew with the order of addition of colours simply altered.

M.M. — 30-May-2013