27 - Adulting Scale updated
NB: I didn't forget last week's update! There was an issue with sending it out, and I've contacted support so that they can sort it out and hopefully it doesn't happen again.
Please access my post on the Friend Stock Market here or check my archives here! I'm always up to date with my posts :D
Remember how I was trying to work out an Adulting scale before?
Well, just like most original thoughts, other geniuses have already thought through it! There's a literal field of study called 'developmental psychology' that covers this exact thing...unfortunately I haven't found some completely new revelation about the world (oh well - another time maybe...).
Here's the adulting scale from Kegan - called the Adult Development Theory; most of this post is based on this link - I'm mainly quoting from it and seeing how my initial thoughts on this area were developed by #real #people doing #real #research.
According to Kegan, becoming an adult isn’t about learning new things (adding things to the ‘container’ of the mind), it’s about transformation — changing the way we know and understand the world (changing the actual form of our ‘container’).
My previous post was about milestones, instead of the broader ramifications of what they actually mean. Each step in the scale was some sort of transformation in how you'd approach the world - dependence on your parents, dependence on yourself, other's dependence on you. This theory helps to identify what underpins each of those steps. It's not about the 'symptoms' of development, it's more about the 'root cause' of adult development, which concerns transformation and change
Another part that's important to understand about his theory:
Transitioning to higher stages requires a subject-object shift — moving what we ‘know’ from Subject (where it is controlling us) to Object (where we can control it).
...
- Subject (“I AM”) — Self concepts we are attached to and thus cannot reflect on or take an objective look at. They include personality traits, assumptions about the way the world works, behaviors, emotions, etc.
- Object (“I HAVE”) — Self concepts that we can detach ourselves from. That we can look at, reflect upon, engage, control and connect to something else.
From my read on this, it's about having something as your identity that you just are vs. beliefs about your life that you have. The ownership is crucial - being Subject to something means that you are passively that thing, whereas being Object to something (not the right grammar but whatever) means that you are actively that thing, or you can step back and understand why you want to be that thing.
The scale has 5 stages (nearly like mine! but definitely better):
- Stage 1 — Impulsive mind (e.g. a kid who just wants to DO things)
- Stage 2 — Imperial mind
* Subject: IS needs, interests & desires
* Object: HAS impulses, feelings & perceptions
- Stage 3 — Socialized mind
* Subject: IS interpersonal relationships, mutuality
* Object: HAS needs, interests & desires
- Stage 4 — Self-Authoring mind
* Subject: IS self authorship, identity and ideology
* Object: HAS relationships, mutuality
- Stage 5 — Self-Transforming mind
* Subject: IS
* Object: HAS self authorship, identity and ideology
I won't go into the detail about each of these stages - you can follow the link to get there. What I do like about this scale is that it's not tied to any milestones or point system or arbitrary rules. It's about how you perceive the world, how you experience it, and how you understand it.
Someone who has a pet could be at Stage 2, because they just, y'know, wanted a pet! Or they might be in Stage 3, where they hold strong values about being kind to other organisms. Or Stage 4, where they do it just because they are a person who is kind to animals. Or Stage 5, where...well, I'm not 100% sure but they are continuously assessing and changing who they are, not being controlled by any labels or their identity that they cling to. (Not sure if this is right...this got hard!)
I'd love to say that I'm somewhere between Stage 4 and 5, but it's more likely that I'm between Stage 2 and 3 :D It's a difficult thing to understand where one might sit on these stages and the article does mention that most people think they are better than they are. I think it's just about striving to move through the stages, self-reflect and work out what type of person you want to be. Introspective thinkers might have an advantage here!
Lastly, one of the main things I got wrong (and was rightly criticised for by many of you) is that adulting isn't about what you achieve - it's about something deeper than that. Using this theory, adulting is more about how you access your environment, how you understand it, how you navigate tricky relationships in a mature way, and go about your life in a fundamentally different way. Just because you move out doesn't make you mature; just because you have kids doesn't make you more responsible or higher up the scale!
I'm going to continue to work on understanding what this all means in future posts - but anyway, that's the tea 🍵
Chat soon :)
✔️ Real Life Recommendations
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Don't Fuck with Cats - new Netflix true crime doco - quite an interesting one! I think it's compelling enough to recommend; it's an interesting unfolding of events and getting into the mind of the killer. Really good watch; morbidly, I kind of wish that I could have seen the videos, but I also think it's better that I didn't. Life is fucked enough; limiting the amount of animal cruelty you see is probably better...
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Gewurzhaus - I'm getting into this shop in a MAJOR way. It's a herb and spice shop that stocks all different types of, well, herbs and spices. It has some incredibly aesthetic jars that store these spices, but more than that, they sell a bunch of really cool gifts - cool teatowels, spice grinders, beeswax wrap and more! I like how unique the store is - I don't think there are many places you can find the same collection of products!
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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Splendid Isolation - a journalist took a wilderness retreat out for 24 hours and found it incredibly boring...which helped to open his mind and notice things around him in much richer detail. Really opened my eyes - maybe I should do something like this?
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Your life is driven by network effects - really good piece on how a lot of our life is dependent on the networks we choose, or don't choose, to be around. Different levels of our networks will affect us in different ways; I really liked seeing Dunbar's number split out (5 close friends/kin, 15-20 'super family', 45-50 acquaintances, 150 in your tribe/familiars). I had only really heard of the 150 number being the number of people you can keep in your network - but this breakdown makes much more sense.
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Talking to myself with GPT-2 - some guy on the internet trained an AI neural network on his own messages, so that he could build a chatbot to talk to himself when he encountered coding difficulties. What a fascinating way to implement the rubber-ducking concept!
🌱 The Calathea Corner
Every time I see Feleafcia come out with a new leaf it's really fun. She's doing so well I'm so proud :D
Am I becoming a plant dad?!
