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But I find it hard to believe any culture would consider someone as 'mature' who thinks it's acceptable to fly off the handle at the most trivial incidents
There are some people out there who get angry over presumably little things, and tend to remember them for years on end. I've gotten pissed over at mistreatment I've recieved from people and continued to get angry over them even YEARS after that event. My problem in this case could be counted as "caring too much". I have to admit, blowing your stack over trivial things or giving extremely harsh treatment to others and exagerrated statements and insults with little to no evidence is not really mature at all. I've been given some shit poor treatment by Game Masters on RPG websites before
inspite of my continious attempts to be friendly and polite and I ended up recieving sucessively worse treatment until I've taken more than I can handle. I won't go into the details unless you ask me, though.
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or never thinks about anyone except themselves, or constantly demands instant gratification without considering the long-term consequences of their actions.
So... being incredibly selfish and vain is also a trait of immaturity? BTW, what kind of long-term consequences are there of continious instant gratification, anyway? I'm not saying that I constantly recieved praise, and I never ever demanded praise or gratification from anyone. I usually got praise when I wrote a good story or when I wrote short articles that people found very meaningful and informative, as well as entertaining, but after a while I kinda got tired of it all and politely asked them to stop showering me with praise, but soon enough their only response was 'you'll just have to deal with it'
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That's the way little kids behave - think about a toddler who throws a tantrum because his mother won't buy him an ice-cream.
By defintion a tantrum is burst of unplanned and uncontrolled anger. It happens to everyone, and to me quite a bit. Normally my anger tantrums are usually those of emotional build up that occur from the bad things that happened to me in the past. At first I keep it restrained and under control, but after a while it gets to bursting point and I need to vent it on something. Normally I would solve this problem by going down to the parking lot of my apartment building and sprinting several laps across to wear myself out, and I normally let out quiet grunts when I do it. No one really notices and it's always effective. Other times include my contant frustration with some of my software not working properly, and when it happens too much too often, I get fed up of it and just outright switch off my PC, crash on my bed and sulk for ten minutes before getting back up.
Anyway, for your example of a toddler getting angry over not getting an ice-cream... I really don't think this anology really fits Anakin. We don't know too much about Anakin at all, and that's the MAIN problem with the movies. Besides, the reason why he got really pissed the second time around is because his mother DIED! This isn't anywhere near something so trivial and petty as not getting an ice-cream cone. How would YOU feel if a love one died right before your eyes because you weren't fast enough to save them?
His supposed 'whining' (I HATE that word) would have earned a little sympathy if we'd have seen Obi-Wan hold him back from saving his mother. But the MAJOR problem here is that Anakin made it clear that he didn't want to have nightmares and thoughts about his mother, and would rather think about Padme, and that's what destroys his credibility since by the time he really got concerned, it was too late...