Adults only status update: Three awful things you learn as you get older — and while they don’t define life (which is overwhelming grand) they sure can put barriers in the way of individual and social progress. This is just some stuff you need to know.
1. No one is ever wrong. People will defend an opinion or an action until the end, even if every bit of logic and evidence runs contrary. Sincere apologies and genuine admissions of error and wrongdoing are the rarest things in this world. Meanwhile, there is no reward for being right. On the contrary, people will resent you and try to take you down, which leads to point two.
2. Excellence makes you a target of envy and can often harm your prospects for success. Meritocracy exists, and even prevails, but it is realized through your own initiative, and it is never just granted freely by some individual or institution. All progress comes about because you alone push through the attempts of everyone around you to stop it.
3. Average people will sacrifice every principle and every truth for the sake of security. This is because people, with very few exceptions, fear the uncertainty of a free and unknown future more than the seeming security of a known and unfree status quo. They will give up every right and every bit of their soul for the promise of security, even to the point of obeying wicked despots. You can break free of this tendency but it takes courage, risk taking, and a conscious act of defying the convention.
Love it. Very aristocratic.