Delayed Maturation: The Neotenous Society Part II

By staying in school as long as possible, one can delay the day of reckoning, the dreaded day of taking responsibility and being accountable. Some courses of study can occupy a student's time until the age of thirty or later. What if the person finds that he dislikes that line of work, after the preparation is complete? I have known neurosurgeons who were well trained for the profession of neurosurgery, but who were deeply miserable in their work. The same is true for many dentists, attorneys, CPAs, engineers, computer scientists, and many other types of professionals, who for many reasons are compelled to continue on in their work despite their unhappiness.

Would you call such an unhappily compelled person mature? It is almost as if they had passed from the compulsion of schoolwork to the compulsion of an unhappy career, (and possibly an unhappy marriage), without reaching that point of balanced equanimity. Drugs and alcohol can blunt the awareness of one's predicament, but compulsions that are not confronted can remain subconscious and in control for a person's entire life.

We think of a mature person as someone who is accountable, who is responsible--someone who pays the bills and fills a substantial role in society. But if a person is merely going through the motions, without even momentary feelings of satisfaction or peace of mind, or sense of who one is, could that person actually be closer to being a slave than a mature individual? Is it possible the person is "stuck" at a lower level of existence than he should be? Could something have delayed the person's maturation, a badly timed trauma, or perhaps the absence of a necessary trigger of maturation?

Here is one way to look at career satisfaction that may shed a new light on the concept of maturity:

To do something well you have to like it. That idea is not exactly novel. We've got it down to four words: "Do what you love." But it's not enough just to tell people that. Doing what you love is complicated.

....Teachers in particular all seemed to believe implicitly that work was not fun. Which is not surprising: work wasn't fun for most of them. Why did we have to memorize state capitals instead of playing dodgeball? For the same reason they had to watch over a bunch of kids instead of lying on a beach. You couldn't just do what you wanted.

.....By high school, the prospect of an actual job was on the horizon. Adults would sometimes come to speak to us about their work, or we would go to see them at work. It was always understood that they enjoyed what they did. In retrospect I think one may have: the private jet pilot. But I don't think the bank manager really did.

The main reason they all acted as if they enjoyed their work was presumably the upper-middle class convention that you're supposed to. It would not merely be bad for your career to say that you despised your job, but a social faux-pas.

....The most dangerous liars can be the kids' own parents. If you take a boring job to give your family a high standard of living, as so many people do, you risk infecting your kids with the idea that work is boring. [2] Maybe it would be better for kids in this one case if parents were not so unselfish. A parent who set an example of loving their work might help their kids more than an expensive house.

....Unproductive pleasures pall eventually. After a while you get tired of lying on the beach. If you want to stay happy, you have to do something.

.... If your work is not your favorite thing to do, you'll have terrible problems with procrastination. You'll have to force yourself to work, and when you resort to that the results are distinctly inferior.

To be happy I think you have to be doing something you not only enjoy, but admire. You have to be able to say, at the end, wow, that's pretty cool.

Source.

The most successful people I have worked with, were also people who clearly loved their work. There was also, interestingly, something almost childlike about many of them. They had not encased their joy at life inside several layers of forced responsibility and compulsion. They all had to do things at times that they would rather not do, but underneath it all they knew they were living a life they loved. That type of joy has much less to do with the absolute level of income and wealth, and more to do with a person having found their preferred work.

Is it possible that society is so busy teaching children compulsion, that it neglects to teach them how to find what they love? Is it possible that a person never really matures--never really blooms into themselves--until they have found the work they love? Children need to learn how to find this love. Not just a love of work, but a love of work that is truly theirs. Who will teach it to them? It is not part of the curriculum. If they never learn to find their love, who will they blame for their lives going sour? What victims' groups will they join? What tort attorney's children will they help send to college?

I have seen happy plumbers and miserable plumbers. The same is true for virtually any occupation you might name. In opportunity societies such as the US and other anglospheric countries, a plumber can become a millionaire. A public schoolteacher can become a millionaire. I know examples of both. Retiring wealthy is a good thing. Better is working happy and retiring wealthy, or at least, comfortably. Best of all is loving your work so much that, although you could retire comfortably, working is just too much fun to stop.

You see that in many musicians, scientists, and other accomplished professionals who love what they do. But can everybody find that love? How can you tell, if children are not taught how to look for it while they are young enough, if it is left up to chance?

If society is made up mostly of people who are more compelled than mature, what would a society of mature people be like?

Neotenous Society I
Neotenous Society III