Ken West: Opposing views on maturity

The two quotes below present two strikingly different views of maturity. The first is by the founder of Forbes Magazine, B.C. Forbes. The second quote comes from the famous novelist, Kurt Vonnegut. Maybe these quotes represent the optimistic or pessimistic ways in which each looked at life. Or, maybe the quotations represent only one of many ways each man understood life. One day biographers will tell us more.

Resist growing up

B.C. Forbes offers the following advice for men. “Many of the most successful men I have known have never grown up. They have retained bubbling-over boyishness. They have relished wit, they have indulged in humor. They have not allowed ‘dignity’ to depress them into moroseness. Youthfulness of spirit is the twin brother of optimism, and optimism is the stuff of which American business success is fashioned. Resist growing up!”

Forbes’ advice supports major themes in the Positive Psychology movement. Optimism and a sense of humor are championed as key ingredients of positive mental health.

While some believe optimism and pessimism may have genetic roots, others maintain that parents can teach children to see life through positive eyes. By emphasizing the positive and creating encouraging relationships, parents will help children engage life with more humor and playfulness.

Maturity as disappointment

The author of “Slaughterhouse-Five” and other powerful American novels, Kurt Vonnegut, once observed, “Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.” Captured during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, Vonnegut was placed in a German prison camp, an experience that provided the background for many of his novels.

However, Vonnegut’s upbringing may have also influenced his writing. While he was a young boy, Vonnegut’s parents lost their wealth during the Great Depression. By all accounts they never recovered. Tragically, Vonnegut’s mother died after taking an overdose of sleeping pills (many considered the act to be suicide) the night before Mother’s Day when Vonnegut was 22 years old. Afterwards, his father lived his life in isolation.

I am not sure what the quality of Vonnegut’s childhood actually was or the happiness he felt in life. However, George Vaillant of Harvard found that children who do not feel adequately loved in childhood too frequently grow into joyless adults. They rarely vacation. Many are unable to play competitive sports. Why? Vaillant maintains that these overly serious adults are not able to properly harness their rage in competitive situations. Many of these joyless men vacation from themselves by overdrinking or using drugs. Joyless adults are never satisfied. No matter how much others do for them, it is never enough. In a sense, they have a bottomless well of needs that frustrated loved ones cannot fill.

In an odd coincidence, for a book I was writing, I bought a picture of the famous psychologist Jean Piaget from Vonnegut’s second wife, Jill Krementz. Since then, I’ve always wondered about Vonnegut’s personal life. I like to imagine that biographers will show that the author experienced as much happiness as disappointment in adulthood.