Your Adult Developmental History

[Hadoblado]

I consider young adults to be "baby" adults, in that they haven't been a fully cognitively developed being for very long. From this perspective, I see people as having an "adult age" which is basically their actual age - 18 or so. This adult age is loosely defined, so don't take it too literally. When I talk to young adults, it's often impressed upon me that they feel pressure to be fully developed adults when in reality they have not had this opportunity. Learning about the world takes time no matter how smart you are.

My adult age is 15 (an adolescent adult :P).

My views on freedom (as an example) through this lens.

When I was 1, I was depressed and disengaged.
When I was 5, I was an anarcho-capitalist, reveling in technically profound freedom. I could wake up tomorrow and purchase a plane ticket to the other side of the world. Wow.
When I was 7, I distanced myself from this ideology as I realised how few of the beliefs of its adherents logically followed from their principles. How does closing borders not restrict freedom? I was also concerned about externalities (climate change).
When I was 8-9, I came to understand the difference between positive and negative freedom, and how anarcho-capitalism does not acknowledge the existence of negative freedom.
When I was 11-12, I believed in the efficacy of restricting speech. Deplatform the Nazis.
When I was 13-current, I was/am questioning my assumptions regarding deplatforming more. My stance is empiricist, what works works. I'm focused on the question of whether it works first, and when I have a confident answer, then I will move on to the question of who should have this power if anyone.

The numbers are very loose, so don't take this as gospel, but it's a decent representation of my development in this area over time.

Name a topic, set out a timeline, and describe your journey!

 

[Cognisant]

The more I learn the less I know and the more I know the less I understand, not because what I learned before was wrong, rather because everything is so incomprehensibly nuanced it feels impossible to say or even think anything that isn't in some way incorrect. In short, truth is: complicated.

Also as an adult it's difficult to care about anything anymore, I used to think a lot about life extension, robotics, AI, philosophy, etc, now I'm busy considering how best to ride out the next recession, how much leverage is too much, whether I should stick with my current career path or look for better opportunities elsewhere.

I'm relatively well off, I've got plenty of reasons to be happy, but the mundanity of life is slowly killing me.

 

[Puffy]

I'm 14 adult years old. I'd say overall that things have been getting better. I know myself and what I want more, I'm more confident and stable, I look after myself more. I've worked to a place of stability that I can make all the money I need on a 3 day per week job and can focus the rest of the time on my ideal pursuits. I regularly meet people in their 20s adult years who seem to have things less worked out than me.

I think the main areas I've developed in are in mental health, wellbeing and being more realistic or pragmatic with my expectations for my life.

Earlier in my adult years I'd tend to be more idealistic. All areas of my life could be sacrificed as long as I got to write the great American novel type thing and have some kind of special achievement. Where these days my idea of success is doing something I love, having friends and family that I care about, being healthy and overall trying to be a good person.

There are other areas where development has been a lot slower. I had more friends when I was 0 adult years. I've only dated 1 person in my adult life that ended really tragically. I'm still a virgin technically. It's these areas of my life that tend to depress me more. So it's likely what I will spend more time focusing on.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

I've only recently crossed the threshold for what many would consider an adult. I say that because I can sense people younger and older changing their expectations and attitudes about me. I still will get carded in some places like casinos, but otherwise I'm good.

So I'm probably a couple months to a year or so old.

I've had the fortune of having opportunities passed to me, in my past life, but it's all a bit overwhelming. I quit the job I had for years now, before I was born. Even though the experience would've been invaluable if I didn't feel suffocated by it.

Yet still in front of me there are a sea of opportunities and decision trees I can walk down, and no amount of plannification or dwelling will sooth the anxiety, hardly have I left the overwhelming feeling of my job.

Taoism I think will be what I will indoctrinate myself with, as I found it and it matches up with philosophical notions I have developed. I cannot reconcile it's texts with making optimal economic decisions.

Metaphysics/spirituality guiding me through personal turmoil is all I really have, besides perhaps a decent social life, and a otherwise decent support system. The sense that I shouldn't take anything for granted is strong, and yet also the sense of being tired and intolerant of pain comes and goes.

In a sense I am a newborn crying with unmet needs and also when its needs are met. Unable to find a place of comfort, comfort being an imaginary benchmark that I will never reach again. This must be why Taoism is so attractive.

I do not know where I go from here. A 2 week burnout vacation recovery before I muscle up the courage to get a different job. It feels as though my interest are small, and my energy even smaller. I suppose I am looking for some sort of fuel to complement the soul my spirituality gives me. A spark that get's me going. According to the spirituality, seeking and desiring it are not the way to it, but just that I do.

 

[birdsnestfern]

I don't even know what age I am, it depends on what I'm doing.

Probably age 3-4 tolerating indoor crowds, which I don't tolerate well.
Probably 17 year old teenager when it comes to reacting to the opposite political view when its personal even if its not voiced, the reaction inside is.
Probably 40 handing things alone - I do that well.
Probably 12 on holidays when the lonely social needy tender me comes out.
On wine, I don't know, that reverts me back to a 22 year old that pours emotions out that were repressed, wine I try to avoid if I'm with people I could say too much.

The spendthrift me-hmm, shes anywhere from 10-17 - the inner child spending spree girl which is actually about done and satisfied can rest now.

After I learned about how many different love types and ideals there are I saw that nobody has the same definition of love, everyone is so different.
Nobody has a perfect mate and especially INTP rare types that its best to resolve to be alone unless you can tolerate others. Realistically the human relationship area will probably not work out, it doesn't for so many. So, dream yoga, learn to embrace what comes as IF you chose it yourself. Meet it head on. There is likely something spiritual I need to develop and connect to and my lot is to find that and keep searching inside for it and learn to navigate the metaphysical world using the imagination side of the brain.

I have to admit, even going on a short drive to walk where other people are, helps to bring back some youth and cheer in the pandemic which can be pretty isolating.
Oh, I think it would be fun to buy an RV and live as a nomad and travel around and leave the house while I do my share of traveling. Oh, I probably don't really want to be cramped in an RV and will just as well stay where I am. Oh, I'd love to move West, but do I really have the energy to move anywhere? Probably not. Ugh. Not motivated to do anything that large right now.

On average, maybe the social me is about 17:
Reuban & Rachel song fits the avoidant hopeless impatient oblivious pushover.

 

[Minuend]

Difficult to pin down.

I was brought up religious, but at a very early age I didn't find it likely. I didn't feel protected despite doing my best at being "good". Which meant there could be no gods. According to my logic at like 7 years.

I had a strong sense of justice when I was a kid, where I wanted people to just be good to each other and wanted to fight for that.

When I was about 13-14 I started feeling misplaced in the world. Trauma induced depression and anxiety also spiked. I was asking a lot of questions, and reading a lot of things. But I was very alone.

14-16 I looked into a lot of different beliefs and controversial opinions. This is where I spent a lot of time on the internet. Being exposed to a lot I would never have been in RL

17-19 is where I caught up socially. Being a loner and somewhat isolated, I was brought into a social group and learned a lot about understanding people. I was also finding myself more wanted and appreciated as a person than I had ever been. I was a quick learner.

19-21 weird phase. I didn't really find a place to belong, and I had no direction in life. I found intpf around this time and it certainly showed me the value in asking questions and being an outsider didn't mean I was all bad.

20s Was struck by chronic illness. Not taken serious by doctors, so I was basically walking around personality and brain dead due to hormone deficiency. Illness changes a lot. I understood how poor norwegian healthcare is. I understood how poor people who are ill or have problems are treated and perceived. How easily you are treated in a patronizing manner and pretty much show you how little your worth is.

Late 20s, got diagnosed and got meds. By then I had been fairly isolated as I had been too sick to keep in contact with friends and such. I had been outside work life, and had been living a fairly isolated life. By then I had realized people's incompetence and incapability of living up to the task they are assigned. I realized even when people are educated, they can still be fools. I guess the things I learned are too many an too complex to list. But it was part of making me understand how primitive and bad society is. Even when growing up in a society where you are told everything is fine, people are competent and you will be taken care of is something goes wrong. That is a lie. Also lived in poverty. Had to borrow money to pay for rent and food.

30s My understanding of people and how things work continued to grow. Today I understand things and people in a way that I have never have been before. I can interpret and understand people more deeply than before. I understand corruption, personal interest and western society better than I did before. The world has never been more bleak. Also, my random investments paid off, so I no longer had to worry about money.

So what's left? Finding my place in the world, if it exists. Try to maintain some personal satisfaction and happiness in a world that is rotten, in a world that is primitive and disgusting. 40s, hopefully.

I might be an adult, but there's still a lot to learn and understand.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

I don't exactly get the "not fully developed" idea.

Some of the things I do in my life right now are things that I knew I should be doing when I was 7 years old, but had not had the power or control to execute. Was I a particularly driven kid who knew what I wanted? Don't think so.

It's true that we get increasingly more complex, have more knowledge and understand things to a greater depth, but how is that more adult, in what sense? Does that mean that, at some arbitrary point, we stop getting better, have everything figured out, stop bothering? Is this what adulthood means - hitting a dead end that prevents future growth?

We change our views and refine opinions, but these views could have easily evolved in the opposite direction. I may have started as a peace-loving secular humanist and have had my approach radicalized into cyber crime and vigilantism by joining a particularly influential "hacker" circle that I'd want to impress and then would consider my brothers who in fact were nothing else but a "parasitic relationship facsimile of a family". Or I could have started as a down and dirty manipulative kid, then had a brush with "drugs", discovered that jesus is the only salvation from nihilism and became a spiritual leader who teaches others that faith cures addiction and conquers weakness.

We can describe our paths in life, though it's debatable which, if any, is more adult.

I don't think that every development builds wisdom or complexity, some life paths may turn into a rebellion against empirical truth.

 

[Hadoblado]

I don't exactly get the "not fully developed" idea.

Some of the things I do in my life right now are things that I knew I should be doing when I was 7 years old, but had not had the power or control to execute. Was I a particularly driven kid who knew what I wanted? Don't think so.

It's true that we get increasingly more complex, have more knowledge and understand things to a greater depth, but how is that more adult, in what sense? Does that mean that, at some arbitrary point, we stop getting better, have everything figured out, stop bothering? Is this what adulthood means - hitting a dead end that prevents future growth?

We change our views and refine opinions, but these views could have easily evolved in the opposite direction. I may have started as a peace-loving secular humanist and have had my approach radicalized into cyber crime and vigilantism by joining a particularly influential "hacker" circle that I'd want to impress and then would consider my brothers who in fact were nothing else but a "parasitic relationship facsimile of a family". Or I could have started as a down and dirty manipulative kid, then had a brush with "drugs", discovered that jesus is the only salvation from nihilism and became a spiritual leader who teaches others that faith cures addiction and conquers weakness.

We can describe our paths in life, though it's debatable which, if any, is more adult.

I don't think that every development builds wisdom or complexity, some life paths may turn into a rebellion against empirical truth.

"Full development" doesn't mean inherently wise or more able. It's about where on your own curve you are in relation to raw capacities.

A 25 year old has more working memory than they did when they were 3, and more than they will have when they're 70. Nevertheless, that same 25 year old might be a flat-earther, while at 3 they had no such idea and by 70 they may have come to learn better.

Myelination of neurons takes time and tmk there's no getting around that. Some environments are better than others (nutrition probably plays a big role) but that's just a different factor.

Edit: Woah I lost focus big time.
In relation to development, all I mean is plotting your course over your lifetime. Ignore what I wrote above, your criticism of the way I used "full development" is apt. I was more using it to mean the point at which something is well-developed as opposed to completely undeveloped.

 

[scorpiomover]

I consider young adults to be "baby" adults, in that they haven't been a fully cognitively developed being for very long. From this perspective, I see people as having an "adult age" which is basically their actual age - 18 or so. This adult age is loosely defined, so don't take it too literally. When I talk to young adults, it's often impressed upon me that they feel pressure to be fully developed adults when in reality they have not had this opportunity. Learning about the world takes time no matter how smart you are.

My adult age is 15 (an adolescent adult :P).

My views on freedom (as an example) through this lens.

When I was 1, I was depressed and disengaged.
When I was 5, I was an anarcho-capitalist, reveling in technically profound freedom. I could wake up tomorrow and purchase a plane ticket to the other side of the world. Wow.
When I was 7, I distanced myself from this ideology as I realised how few of the beliefs of its adherents logically followed from their principles. How does closing borders not restrict freedom? I was also concerned about externalities (climate change).
When I was 8-9, I came to understand the difference between positive and negative freedom, and how anarcho-capitalism does not acknowledge the existence of negative freedom.
When I was 11-12, I believed in the efficacy of restricting speech. Deplatform the Nazis.
When I was 13-current, I was/am questioning my assumptions regarding deplatforming more. My stance is empiricist, what works works. I'm focused on the question of whether it works first, and when I have a confident answer, then I will move on to the question of who should have this power if anyone.

The numbers are very loose, so don't take this as gospel, but it's a decent representation of my development in this area over time.

Name a topic, set out a timeline, and describe your journey!

When I was a kid, I was really good at science, maths, anything like that.

But I'd been made to suffer, wanted to not be selfish and just take everything for myself. However, over time, I can see that was taking being unselfish to an extreme.

Now I realise that I need to prioritise my own needs as well as others. But that's been such a long journey, that even if I was 100% selfish and self-motivated for 49 years, and I had all the opportunities that I had when I was young, that would only make me balanced out, and not even selfish.

I don't know what age that would be, when you realise that you have to be somewhat selfish.

So intellectually and morally, I'm more like 100 years old, in terms of what I have learned.

But in terms of practicalities and getting what I want, I'm like a toddler.