The world's problem #2 - Giant Babies

A German colleague recently had a baby, and I signed a card to congratulate them. Ah, babies—the purest spirits in the world, innocent and full of wonder. They are so adorable that parents naturally devote themselves to meeting their every need. But love can sometimes blind parents to a simple truth: a baby’s self-awareness is almost nonexistent. In fact, self-awareness doesn’t fully develop until puberty, or later, or even never. Babies are, by nature, completely self-centered. They cry when their needs aren’t met and smile only when they’re happy because they lack the ability to consider others' emotions.

The second biggest problem in the world? Many people never outgrow this mindset. They remain low in self-awareness and high in self-centeredness.

China has a well-known story about an emperor of the Jin Dynasty who, having been raised in a palace and shielded from reality, once asked, “Why don’t the starving people eat meat?” when he heard they lacked grain and bread. If that doesn’t make it clear, let’s consider some extreme examples:

• A husband and father who murdered his wife and daughters simply because he fell in love with someone else.
• A woman who may have arranged the murder of her best friend, to set up the friend's husband as the killer, killed an innocent man herself. She was suspected of killing her own mother too for money but we may never prove it.?
• The Unabomber, sent mail bombs to kill innocent people because he despised industrialized society.
• Fanatics who condemn those with different religious beliefs as heretics and seek to erase them from existence.

People do grow—if they’re open-minded. They learn from experience and outgrow their infantile perspectives. Some even go further, gaining the wisdom to see that love, not violence, is the real solution to problems, and that differing opinions are not a threat, but a strength. But here’s the catch: we all die, and wisdom dies with us. We can write it down, pass it on, and help open-minded individuals grow faster, but true understanding only comes through lived experience. This is why history keeps repeating itself—it’s an unavoidable cycle of each new generation relearning the lessons of the past.

Still, there’s no need for frustration. The world is getting better. With each generation, more wisdom accumulates, even if progress isn’t always linear (the law of undulation reminds us that things often get worse before they get better).

Yes, these giant babies are among us. As M. Scott Peck described in The Road Less Traveled, every life is like a map—some people continue exploring and expanding theirs, while others stop early, content with their small, familiar world. Even worse, some people shrink the vast complexity of life to fit within their limited perspective, convinced that everything makes perfect sense through their own logic. They see only black and white, refusing to acknowledge the countless shades of gray. Their mindset is simple: “My way or the highway.”

I recently had a conversation that demonstrated this perfectly. I fully understood the other person’s perspective, but when I tried to offer a new one, he refused to listen. Why?

1. He couldn’t easily see what I saw.
2. He had no interest in seeing it.

From his perspective, I was completely wrong. And if I had viewed the situation through his map, I would have reached the exact same conclusion.

This experience made one thing clear: I am better than him. Just kidding - definitely not. Thinking that way would make me one of the Giant Babies myself. Instead, I realized that in some areas, I too might be holding onto a flawed perspective—simply because my map is still incomplete. That’s one of the key reasons I enjoy writing and reading your comments—you help me expand my map. The more I grow, the less likely I am to naively blame others when, in reality, I am the one who is mistaken.

Sometimes, I can’t help but wonder—what if this world is just a simulated game? Some people seem like non-playable characters (NPCs), while others are real players. The best part? You get to choose your role. You can be an NPC, merely shaping the journey of others, or you can be the player—learning, growing, and leveling up yourself.

If you choose to be the latter, drop a comment below. Let’s keep learning together.

--TBC--

02/19/2025, St. Louis