In A Wrinkle in Time, a character who has lived thousands of years is asked why they no longer concern themselves with appearances.
Their answer, in essence: after enough time, you simply see things as they are.
True maturity is similar. The genuinely adult person stops labeling — stops sorting everything into categories of good/bad, worthy/unworthy, threatening/safe. They begin to see situations and people as they simply are, without the filter of ego and judgment running continuously in the background.
That detachment from labeling is not coldness. It is freedom.
— Thiện Minh