Conceptions of the Mature Personality from Dr. Graves' Research

Nodal (Example # 2)

"Maturity can be defined as a ripeness as a fruition of determined potentialities, as a fullness of possible development. The word and the concept, as I see it, carries certain moral implications. When we say she or he is mature, we are passing judgments, the word carries an implied ought; maturity is good and one ought to be mature.

The mature ought to be what he can be and nothing more. The cardinal rule of maturity is that an individual must [n]ever seek vainly and erroneously to comp[l]ete himself falsely. He must never seek to find (lose himself) in the material world of things or hide himself in books or meaningless social activities. The mature individual never seeks to define himself strictly by roles. This, however, is only negative advice.

Positively speaking, the mature individual must (ought) transcend his animal desires and give its geist free range in order that it might seek the fullest possible actualization of its ideas.

The mature individual must not repress his animality (here used in a neutral context) because man is both geist and body, and in fact they are one. An individual geist can only actualize itself through a body. The body ought therefore be appreciated, respected, and cultivated to the fullest extent possible.

The mature individual must seek harmony between the symbolic system (as may be manifested by the intellectual rational ego), must realize its origins and limitations, while yet cultivating its powers. The mature individual must take stock of this emotive meaning structures and understand them. In this way the play of emotions and the subconscious will not produce existential anxiety in the mature individual and psychopathological stress will be avoided. The mature individual must take stock of his emotive meaning structures and understand them -- as opposed to vain attempts of others to comprehend, repress or ignore them.

The mature individual does not seek power or control of the environment. Since the mature personality realizes that his geist is but a particular manifestation of the Universal, he is aware that the same is true of all men.

Since personality is a proves and develops through relationships, the mature individual must not bother himself with seeking absolute freedom. For him, it is a meaningless concept.

The mature individual realizes that the possibility of death lies always on the horizon and life is here and now. He will live his life, at any one moment, as if at the next death might bring an end to the projection of his ideals. This realization will not bring despair to the mature individual but rather will intensify his celebration of the joy of becoming. In the fullest sense, maturity is the ability to Be and Become; to know communion and realize the inevitability of reunion with the universal."