[Tension & Renewal - XXII]
As a child we depend on others for meaning, direction, and survival. We need someone outside of us, especially when we are very young, to give us the means to live. Usually the "someone outside us” is a parent.
As adults, meaning and survival no longer come from a parent. Survival should come from the internalized responsibility and habits that sustain us.
Between childhood and adulthood is a crucial transition: the long road of maturing. On the front end we are dependent and “milk” (quite literally as infants) our parents for everything. On the back end we ought to cease taking and “milking” from others, and instead, creating and giving away.
It is a sign of our immaturity when we rely on “parents” well into our adulthood. But the opposite of immature dependance is not strength or ability or some kind of finger-wagging elitism. The opposite of dependance is maturity, expressed in generatively (that’s a great word—look it up).
Spiritual transformation—a deep and true sign of renewal—is marked by productivity and the impulse to create.
Create, make, or build something. Give it to a child. Experience renewal.
