People Adults know how the world works When you’re a kid you think adults are super smart and that one day when you grow up, you’ll understand everything. When you actually grow up, you look like an adult from the outside but from the inside you still feel like a kid . No moment of enlightenment arrives, you’re still as confused as ever. You just complain about it less. You either accept the beauty of your insignificance or try to rebel against it; but you just stop asking the “what does it all mean?” question directly . You just “go on” with your life - whatever your life is.

There are some smart people who have figured it out This is a sister projection of the above. Where we assume that our lives are chaotic and confusing because we are bad, but there are these enlightened souls out there immune from the world’s crap and living blissfully . In the last year alone, two of the world’s richest men have ended their marriages. Celebrities keep getting into trouble. No one figures it out. There’s no vaccine against getting passed over for a promotion a work, annoying neighbours, marriage troubles, fights in the family, delayed orders, spilt coffee, shitty investments, and the myriad of life’s slaps in the face . But there is an opportunity to approach life’s events with equanimity and give it your best.

Being a kid was a special time, being an adult will suck I heard this a lot when I was a kid. “Enjoy your childhood. Such a time will never come”. It was confusing because, it’s not like I had an option to enjoy adulthood or was deliberately not enjoying my childhood . Though I do cherish my childhood, as someone who was able to stand on his own two feet, my adult life is far more superior to my childhood on many counts . I can order as many chocolates as I want, I watch TV shows all day, I can sleep all day, I can read all day. I can do whatever I want. And drinking, sex, and drugs are options on the table . Every goddamn carnal pleasure permitted. _WHEW!

_In hindsight, most kids live in little prisons of their parents rules. 20s is a special time, life will suck after that On my 25th birthday, when I was coming to terms with being alive for a quarter of a century, my friend told me bluntly “It gets worse from here, everything in your life will go downhill. Looks, brains, everything” . I didn’t take him too seriously or worry about his damning prophecy, but I have often wondered, “Will life only get worse?”. 5 years later, the answer is no, at least for now . I think as you get older, you see things more clearly, you gain more independence, you slow down on fooling yourself, and start inching closer to living life on your own terms . The financial independence, the self confidence, the letting go of bad patterns and toxic attachments takes time; and you slowly become sterner and more agentic . You understand and accept who you are. That is only a good thing. Every age of your life is different, and you’re called upon to do different things in each, they’re not comparable.

That said, the human body and raw cognitive capabilities definitely peak in the 20s. Let’s not deny that. However, fluid intelligence gets replaced by crystallised intelligence, keeping overall cognitive ability going up . The raw speed of a young person gets replaced by the wisdom and experience of an older person, they deliver the same results, the latter with more reliability . There is a lot of fetishization of youth.