Adults Don't Exist by George Mack

Adults Don't Exist by George Mack

If you could put one idea on a billboard for the world to see -- what would it be?

Here's mine: Adults don't exist.

If you dig deep enough under low agency behaviour, you discover a belief in a god-like adult class that is superior to them.

There’s a Peter Pan perception of reality that has been frozen in time from childhood. The fictional beliefs of Santa and the Toothy Fairy were uncovered – but the belief in a god-like adult class that runs the world still remains.

Teachers, politicians, parents, service staff, CEO’s – there’s this mystical group of adults who have figured everything out. In the low agency model of the world, there’s a world full of emperors – all wearing beautiful clothes.

The high agency individual was told the same story in their childhood — but they began to see behind the curtain. Some gradually saw it — others were forced to see it all at once: The adults of the world aren’t a god-like superior class that have figured everything out, they’re just giant children putting on a show.

Not only are the emperors not wearing any clothes, they are not even emperors.

If you ever get to meet your heroes, you realize Superman was Clark Kent all along – but your mind beforehand was a movie studio falsely putting this human on a pedestal.

A low agency fallacy to fall into is to see your backstage (inner dialogue, emotions, messy life) and contrast it to other adults stage performance (words, social media profile, job title).

The low agency fallacy dehumanizes other adults: It puts them on a pedestal of a superior god-like class.

One modern trope thrown around in the self-help world is the concept of “Imposer Syndrome” – and how the solution is to simply believe in yourself more.

A more useful alternative is to just realise that everyone else is also just figuring it out:

They started off as a sperm cell, fertilized an egg, came into this world screaming in a hospital bed with no sense of self, downloaded patterns of information from those around them that seemed certain — and now we call them “adults”.

Deep down, everyone is just a child that has aged, with sensory inputs each day trying to figure out what reality is.

If you could see behind the curtain of everyone, you’d humanise these people: They are not gods. They eat, sleep, cry and visit the bathroom just like you.

Reality gives many red pill moments if you pay attention closely enough:

1. The Teacher Red Pill - One of the biggest red pill moments comes in your early 20’s:

A person you know who has a messy emotional life and is unsure of what they want to do with their life decides to become a teacher.

You then do the mental maths: A large % of the teachers you put on pedestals in childhood were also just giant children figuring things out.

Your whole foundation of reality was a facade: The adults never existed.

2. The Milestone Red Pill - When you’re young and meet someone who is 18, 21, 25, 30, 40, 50….

You think they are a different creature to you. You can’t imagine what it’s like being that age – but you’re convinced you’ll have everything figured out by the time you are that age.

You then hit these age milestones yourself – and notice you’re still the same creature. You never got the magic adult badge of figuring everything out.

You have some experience, greyer hair and wrinkles – but you never transcended into the god-like adult class.

The red pill moment happens: These different creatures never existed. It was all a lie. They were just giant children figuring things out too.

The low agency mindset has built an immune system defence to these red pill moments. They live in a state of denial, and if a superior god-like adult gets undeniably exposed as just a grown up child — the vacuum gets filled with a new god-like adult:

They have the red pill teacher moment – but they fill the vacuum with a new super guru they follow online. Or they find out their parent was just a fallible human – and now replace that void with a politician who has all the answers.

Humanize the "adults' around you. Do not put them on pedestals.

The adults don't exist.

There’s just giant children figuring things out.
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