Does Growing up amount to Changing?

I spoke to a very old friend from school on the phone last night.

And it struck me how little he has changed since the childhood days. Even then he was a strong earthy sort, outgoing, confident, and in some ways a natural leader, and a bit simpleminded in the way that practical people usually are.  He sounded similarly in charge now. Even more strikingly, we talked of old common friends, and our impressions of them, positive and negative, the way we relate to them still remain more or less the same (I don't want to boast about the keenness of my memory, but let me just assure you my memory was still the same when I was ten - pretty good. :)  )

This got me seriously looking at myself, while enjoying lunch in the open at our beautiful university plaza today.  And it became more and more apparent to me, and depressingly so, that most things about me haven't changed, despite all the experience and the education that the years have put into me. I was always socially shy, kept a bit to myself but was amiable enough to have a small group of friends, had an adventurous streak while being nervous and generally insecure about trivial things. I hated rules, waking up early in the mornings, pompous people, and pigeons - I still do.  I liked obscure facts, ancient civilizations, telling stories, traveling, comic books, maps, and animal pictures - I still do.  I sucked at jobs involving fine motor skills, was clumsy with machines and hands-on jobs - I still am. Sure I was a pretty below-average student in elementary school, especially when it came to math, and gradually worked myself to being better at academics. over the school years. But then it could also be argued that the kinds of things one studied and did changed dramatically for the more abstract logical thinking that I was good at, when one reached highschool.  Maths became much friendlier when it moved on from being learnt-up procedures like multiplying large numbers to an elegant system of logical reasoning. That said I still lack graphic imagination and intuition that math whizzes have, which probably means I won't ever achieve anything dramatic or striking when it comes to math. And some quirks, personal oddities can be more permanent than you think. My parents claim that one of my pet phrases as a child was : "porle khulbo na, khulle porbo na" (this was my policy with respect to clothes, "shan't take them off if i am made to wear them, won't wear them once taken off", basically an extreme reluctance to change clothes).  I still dislike changing very often - I saw through the pointlessness of such superficial baggage as dress very early on in life.

In college there was this tendency to explore.  It was fashionable to try out new things - discover 'hidden talents'.  I never found any, just honed the ones I knew I already had and had my ineptitude at the others driven home with greater force. While I was decently skilled at soccer from very early on, I sorely lacked the drive and athleticism and willingness to work hard on it even when presented with a serious opportunity to train in college. I did meet and live with lots of new and different people over time here, and that certainly helped me pick up some social skills, i.e. how to fit my behavior into general templates that could help me relate to and get by with others.  But the basic shyness still remains.  When suddenly confronted withsomeone, say handing a pamphlet or selling stuff, essentially people I am expected to deal casually with, I need to make serious effort to express myself, and find it terribly hard to come up with clever quips or observations on the spot, although I tend to do it moments afterwards while replaying the conversation in my head (yeah I actually do that!) My political views have changed greatly over time - I imagine I was a rabid rightwinger as a kid, always getting excited when there was war somewhere in the planet. Nationalism and radicalism seemed cool to me, and war was then an extension of a cricket match.  But I was always into socialism - I remember feeling uncomfortable with excessive displays of wealth from very early on. I remember being extremely disturbed and feeling class-conscious when I went to a rich kid's birthday party (but then all kids are selfish class-conscious insecure brats, methinks). Of course talking to people and reading books has helped me mature my ideas - but is it just that?  We just mature, add layers, mend the rough edges as we grow older, not really changing anything about the "core us"?  Wouldn't it be cool to keep on discovering new things about oneself, to change in little ways, to know that there is a possibility I could achieve a lot even with things we see ourselves as weak at?

As a child, the world seems a new and wonderful and exciting place, and one keeps learning new things, about oneself too. Genuine spiritual experiences come more frequently.  While some people do cling on to these commendable childish traits of wonder and an almost mystical appreciation of life, most including me do not. In this one significant way we might have changed. Perhaps if we had retained that spirit, we could  still have continued to surprise ourselves, kept on discovering hidden talents and been more receptive and open to change, and life would have been more of the fantasy quest that we all would like it to be?


ps : All said and done, I am positively alarmed that this not changing at all might be another personal quirk,  basically boiling down to stubborness and indolence, and that other people do change and improve a lot over time! :(