Why Grow Up? by Susan Neiman

Corey Gugino, Section #2

    My grandpa was my hero. When I think of him, I see in my mind the picture of an “old man”- gray hair, gray beard, the collection of wrinkles around his eyes from a lifetime of smiling. He was full of kindness and joy for life, and while his appearance might have been that of an “old
man,” he never really seemed to get into the role. There was something he always used to say that I never really gave much thought to, until I became an adult myself:

    “They can make me grow old, but they can never make me grow up.”

    The sentiment about the slog that is Adult Life transcends generations. Jobs, taxes, being responsible for everything…what a drag. Or is it? Susan Neiman argues against the sentiment in her book “Why Grow Up?” She acknowledges that we, as a society, have no made it desirable to grow up- nor have we made it easy. So…why grow up?

    Neiman states the short answer in the last section of her book: “because it’s harder than you think, so hard that it can amount to resistance.” But just because something is hard doesn’t automatically mean it’s worth doing. She acknowledges all the difficulties of growing up, and what makes it amount to resistance- having to think for yourself (what Kant defined as “maturity”), having to exercise good judgement, being expected to be serious. But, despite all this, she argues that the case for maturity should be made- it should be desired, and we should look forward to it. She references the poem “Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas, specifically the repeated line “rage against the dying of the light.”- she offers instead that we should “rage against the picture of ageing as one of dying light.”

    When reading this, I understood what she meant immediately. I grew up hearing the same things that we all did about enjoying our youth: “it’s the best time of your life!” and “it’s all downhill from here!” I remember being eleven years old, in the kitchen with my mother, who had spent all day lamenting her 30^th birthday. Even the cake could not wake her from the throes of despair- only 30 years old, and she was already raging against the dying light. Or, perhaps not raging, but being very morose about the affair.  

    Nineteen years later, in 2022, I turned 30. The gloom didn’t set in. I didn’t feel any different. I received a nice pair of shoes and a good dinner. It was a good day. And, I continued to have good days.

    Why did this happen? What switch was flipped? I’m not sure. Neiman references studies that show what is called the “U-bend,” in which people gradually get unhappier until middle age, where the trend reverses and people get steadily happier once more. Does my current experience buck the trend, or am I doomed to start becoming unhappier again? No, I don’t think so- after “Why Grow Up?” was written, more recent studies started to emerge that showed the U-bend starting to turn into more of a diagonal line, where the unhappiest people tended to be young adults.

    Neiman points to experience and perspective as the positives of the passage of time- the ability to truly appreciate “natural miracles” such as sunsets with fresh eyes that can truly appreciate them in ways that we couldn’t when we’re younger. Not only that, but with age we’re able to see how the pieces of our life fit together as a whole picture and realize that nothing is the end of the world, or, as she puts it, “no time in one’s life is the best one.”

    These are compelling reasons to grow up- to know that the difficulty and weight of life will start to fade, and self-assuredness will start to fill in some of the space that was once occupied with anxieties. That isn’t enough though- growing up isn’t just about ageing and looking at sunsets, there is work to do. So, how does one mature? How does one “think for oneself?” Neiman calls upon Kant once again to help find the answers, and one of the largest pieces of the puzzle is to “exercise good judgement.”

    It’s a bit difficult to define what “good judgement” means- and that’s because it’s something that, as Kant puts it, “can be practiced but not taught.” For all intents and purposes, “judgement” in this context is the same as wisdom- and wisdom IS widely understood to be one of those things that come with time. We somehow inherently understand the difference between intelligence and wisdom- that the former is one you gain from learning facts, and the latter gained from learning through experiences.

    I believe this is why it’s easy to look back on younger versions of ourselves and cringe. I was a bookish teen and knew a lot of raw facts- but I had practically no wisdom. I don’t often look back at myself 15 years ago and say “wow, I was very smart!” Instead, I look back and go, “wow, I should have listened to my grandparents more.” My grandparents were wise. They had experience. I did not- and thus, did a lot of silly things that my grandparents knew would bum me out. They also had enough good judgement to realize that the only way for me to develop MY judgement was to let me touch the hot stove.

    Good judgement is one part of maturity- another one that Neiman explores in-depth is how to be “in agreement with oneself,” another of Kant’s suggestions. What does it mean? It means to pose yourself the same question that philosophers have been pondering for hundreds of years:

    What if you had to live this life again? How do you feel about the prospect?

    Fredrich Nietzsche was perhaps the most famous to pose this thought experiment. He used the example of a demon coming to you in your darkest hour and telling you that once your life was over, you’d have to repeat it- everything the same, with all the same heartbreaks and joys- do you react with anger and despair, or do you welcome the prospect?

    To be “in agreement with oneself” means to be able to answer this thought experiment with enthusiasm. As Nietzsche put it, to answer the demon: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine." And what do you do if your response is to recoil? The answer is to reexamine how your life is going, to change the path into one that is more satisfactory. To build not just a life worth living, but a life worth re-living. It might be one of the most difficult prospects of all, and one of the most fulfilling. Do you agree with yourself?

    If maturity is about exercising good judgement and living the kind of life you’d do over again, that leaves one last thing: getting over the mental prospect of ageing. Neiman offers the most blunt response to this possible: ageing happens if you’re lucky. The alternative is dying young. The largest difficulty in tackling the prospect of ageing is fighting the rest of the societal scorn that those who are called “old” face- but hopefully, if you have matured into someone who is self-assured, knows where to find joy in life, and live in agreement with yourself, you’ll find the ageing process tolerable- the aesthetic changes simply surface level, and the health changes manageable.

    My grandpa never really raged against the dying light- he laughed at it. He used to make jokes about getting old, about his graying hair and aching bones, and about exactly how gently he would go into that good night. The family would scold him for being so flippant, but he never once started taking his age seriously. He was forced to grow old- but he’d never have admitted to growing up. Did he exercise good judgement? Yes. Did he live in agreement with himself? I’m unsure, and I’m unable to ask him- although I’m sure if I did, he’d laugh at that too.

    Neiman answers the question “Why grow up?” with “because it’s harder than you think.” There are many obstacles in the way, many personal hurdles to jump through. The fight is never over. Why grow up?

    Because it’s worth it.