Catch-22

There are many occasions in my life that I can look back  and think, "Man, I behaved really immaturely there."  And of course I'm right.  I do behave immaturely quite often, especially when dealing with strife or emotional trauma.  


I can also remember on some of those occasions talking to my friends and having them tell me, "That's a really immature thing to do."  They were right, too.  But they were outside the issue and there's nothing saying that given the same situation they would have acted any differently or any more maturely than I did.


Finally, I remember times when my friend was going through a problem and was acting in an immature manner.  And guess what?  I knew it was immature at the time, and sometimes I said so.  But in that case, I was the one outside the issue.


So it comes down to this: emotional distress makes us act stupid.  And the more time passes, the more experience we get.  And hence, the more mature we become.


So yes, I've done some stupid and immature things in the past two weeks, and I'm sure there are many more stupid and immature things to come.  Not that I like behaving this way, but often it seems the thing to do at the time.  It's not until later, when I have the experience, that I realize how much I screwed up.  But I don't get experience unless I go through these things and screw up.

The phrase "Catch-22" comes from the book of the same title by Joseph Heller.  In it, he labels several issues with that term, all of them self-contradictory or circular in their reasoning.  The original Catch-22 is this: A pilot cannot be grounded unless he is insane.  However, he must request to be grounded.  The actual quote from the book is here: 

Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.

The whole point is that the logic is circular.  And so it is with experience.  You can't avoid a mess if you don't have it, but you can't get it unless you make a mess.

Or, as a friend of mine put it, "Experience is the comb that life gives you after you've gone bald."