A recent Bollywood movie is titled 'Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji', which literally translates to 'Heart is a kid, Sir!' and which implies - ‘Heart is a child at heart'. In order to ensure that women don't take umbrage with this title, because apparently their heart is all grown-up, the makers have added a tagline, 'Love grows, men don't!!!’ Not growing up is the most common accusation that has ever been thrown at man, albeit mostly by women. In today's advanced day and age, some men have also been known to hurl this accusation at other men, but that's all right. There is nothing wrong with that.
Personally, I am yet to meet a man (myself included, the males on the accusing party mentioned above excluded) who has not been accused of being an imbecile at least once. We get it from all corners - from frustrated mothers, from frantic girlfriends, from fuming ex-girlfriends, from furious wives, from flame-erupting ex-wives. In fact, this accusation has been thrown at man so frequently and with such consistency that man has almost accepted it to be true. If you walk on the streets and stop 100 random men and ask them 'Do men grow up?', 57 of them will ignore you and walk away faster (a clear case of hedging an issue because in your heart of hearts you know it to be true), 23 will either deny it with extreme vehemence (because they are convinced that this actually is true) or shrug and smile (either because they are partially convinced or they are really just dumb), 10 will say they don't care (because they don't), and 9 will agree with you. 1 will turn out to be a woman in disguise.
And this accusation is not a contemporary accusation that has been created by women's lib and the rise of feminism. This one has existed since Adam. I am sure that from Adam to Jesus to King Arthur to Lincoln to Churchill to Hitler to Gandhi to Clinton - each one of them has been asked this question - Why don't you grow up? (We will ignore Adam and Clinton for this debate because Eve's accusation had nothing to do with Adam's lack of emotional, psychological or mental growth, as was the case with most of Clinton's accusers). However, the response to this accusation has changed over time, from total denial to angry protest to subdued protest to almost complete acceptance. King Arthur pulled out his sword and beheaded his accuser, so enraged was he. Michelangelo did not understand at all that the accusation was not anatomical and went on a 'carving male nudes out of stone' spree. Leonardo da Vinci decided that becoming ambidextrous and writing left-to-right on a paper with his left hand would definitely show his accuser who was grown-up. Hitler thought that although this accusation didn't apply to him, it certainly did to a large number of his fellow men. So he did what he did. Gandhi just looked at his accuser with his big sad eyes behind egg-shaped glasses and decided that he will stop wearing clothes as a sign of protest. Lincoln stopped shaving, Churchill decided to go on an eating binge, and Columbus, da Gama, Vespucci and Forrest Gump left home in a huff and tried to run away as far as they could.
But gradually over time, the number of accusers and number of accusations per accuser kept increasing at such an alarming rate that man has finally capitulated and has started agreeing to or at least has stopped disagreeing with the accusation. Some have tried protesting, albeit half-heartedly, by mimicking their favorite historical personality's mode of protest. Mel Gibson tried both Hitler and King Arthur in equal measure, replacing the sword with a gun in the latter case, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Andre Agassi, and Salman Khan tried to go the Gandhi route, but didn't have the conviction or chutzpah of the original act. Another section of men have completely accepted this accusation. As a result, they have given up on trying growing up, since in their minds, it is impossible. At some point in their lives all these men must have had very powerful and convincing women around them. Some members of this club are George W. Bush, Osama Bin Laden, Tiger Woods, Saddam Hussein, Ben Johnson, O.J., Barry Bonds and George Costanza.
And hence we come to the crux of this issue - the situation. Just like love, maturity is a perception and all perceptive movements are based on how the perceiver perceives this movement, which in turn is totally dependent on the perceiver's perceptive prowess. So, the fact is that men grow up, but women don't possess or have lost the perceptive ability required to perceive this growth. This is partly because of the fact that by believing in this accusation down the ages, women have managed to convince themselves that men cannot grow up. Therefore, they turn a blind eye to all symptoms of maturity in men. And in doing so for generations, based on the principle of 'what you don't use, you lose', women have lost their power to perceive growth in men. And we have a catch-222 situation here
- for men to grow, women have to perceive this growth,
- for women to perceive growth, they have to develop the ability to perceive growth,
- for women to develop the ability to perceive growth, men have to grow,
- for men to grow, women have to perceive this growth.
Catch-222 (also known as 2-catch-22 or transitive catch-22) is the most tangled of human situations and has proven to be irresolvable till date.
In Part 2 of this blog, I am going to provide statistical and graphical evidence that will provide an insight into the growth patterns in men, and I will provide growth perception enhancement tips for women. My goal will be to break the transitiveness of this situation, which is the only way to resolve a catch-222 situation.
