Process of maturation

the picture of durian gray: #228

my favourite pieces of literature somehow or other involve the process of maturation, and i think that's because of how closely i relate to the process of growing up. the catcher in the rye, for example, revolves around an antihero who grapples with the contradiction between the innocence of childhood and the cruelness of adulthood through martyrdom. the giver tells the story of an adolescent who is designated the historian of their community, whose sins also he must bear. the little prince concerned an adult pilot who slowly learns that the same world looks different through the eyes of a child and that mortality is but another process we have yet to understand.

the history boys is similar: it captures the gradual development of a group of classmates intellectually, professionally, sexually and emotionally as they reach the cusp of their pubescence, realising that the paths of their lives will be dependent on a single university entrance examination.

and i think i've finally realised that before i can decide who i want to become, i have to know who i am. that's where the whole issue of growing up becomes relevant, i think: in my struggle for self-identification i have allowed myself to stagnate into a totem of indecisiveness and anxiety, and what literature does is allow me to watch characters very much like myself engage in the same brawl and develop in the manner i cannot.