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To most of us, adulthood means being able to earn a living, possess a home, get married and rear children, and this implies having autonomy or control over one's life. In the 19th century, becoming an adult was celebrated as a liberation from paternal authority. Today we regard it more as a time of regret and stagnation.
In America, you keep on hearing productivity is low; secular stagnation, it's a new normal. It's just not true: We've had multiple wars; we're not educating our kids. We had government shut downs, badly-spent money, failures in the health system, failures and an extreme amount of regulation - that's why we're going slow.
Concert pianists are really afraid to try out the Beethoven Fourth Concerto if the Third happens to be their specialty. That's the piece they had such success with on Long Island, by George, and it will surely bring them success in Connecticut. So first there's tremendous conservatism. And then stagnation sets in. Or it certainly did in me.