Nobody's the same and some come to fruition later in life. It's funny, but my therapist (life coach) and I had a discussion about just that topic. For me it's being constantly hit with life changing events. Every time a hit comes along I learn something new (and painful) and evolve a little more. I was told I'm a deep thinker. Every time I fall into another abyss, I think a little deeper.

With age and understanding comes humility. There is the well know Dunning-Kruger effect, which says that those with the greatest ignorance of a subject, are the most likely to overestimate their own understanding and abilities. As we grow older we naturally learn more and gain in experience, it therefore follows that the younger person is more likely to be ignorant, especially about things that are not taught in school, and so, are all the more likely to overestimate their understanding.

I think, though not with certainty, that there comes a tipping point for most people in mid-life, at least those who are honest and intelligent, when you finally understand that you will never understand the world well enough to explain to yourself all its mysteries, or solve all its problems, even in theory. And with that comes, what I at least, would call, mature pragmatism. The belief that you can only solve the problems before your feet at most. From which it follows that in fact, pragmatism, because it at least recognizes your limitations, and maybe the limitations of all human understanding, is actually a higher form of understanding itself, than idealism.

Better to give my neighbor a sticking plaster for his cut, than to rage impotently against all the pains and accidents of human and animal life. Better as Voltaire put it, to tend our cabbages, than cause untold chaos in the world, because of the law of unintended consequences, while chasing treasures. And perhaps most of all, as Epicurus put it, better to know, understand and appreciate the value of a pot of cheese, than lose yourself in dreams of gods and heroes.

But you see, I still therefore idealize at least one thing, in a very zealous and immature way perhaps, and that is pragmatism. And if you think it ironic to idealize pragmatism, then you are right. For I love with seriousness being seen as a joke, it makes me one with the universe.

Some of us are slow learners.