There is no default life script. Everyone is a myth legend. A hero. You can't fault an opinion piece like the posted article, but there's a chink in this thinking. Such opinions - give agency early and it will yield dividends not just for the individual but for humanity as a whole appeals to our most primal human conundrum: our sense of purpose and our destiny in life. The idea of the one individual making geometrically disproportionate impact for all humanity is mythologised. And it's an error. The flip-side of this myth is the ugly face that if we as a society stop producing such myth legends (the original author claims it might have stopped after ca 1968) we are failing as humanity, or worse that if you do not become that myth-legend you are unworthy of respect, or dignity. This is a terrible way to look at things. I do agree about the author's powerful comment that kids (adolescents) today are hardly considered useful for any form of vocational education outside the cookie-cut education systems. But can you orchestrate this paradigm like the CCP did in the late 60s/70s forcing urban kids to learn farming as part of their education? Or is it a naturally existing societal affordance to enable such evolution in kids?
There are many unspoken mythical legends living today, huddled in their numbered and anonymous cubicles. There are many unknown engineers who've done crucial work within their own boundaries of "scripted life" to prevent bridges from collapsing or payroll runs to be corrupted (just in time). No one hears about them. No one celebrates them. But there are billions of us on this planet achieving myth-level brilliance daily just by being responsible parents. Or just by being simply kind to fellow humans.
There is no default scripted life.
Edited: added "Or just by being simply kind to fellow humans."
There are many unspoken mythical legends living today, huddled in their numbered and anonymous cubicles. There are many unknown engineers who've done crucial work within their own boundaries of "scripted life" to prevent bridges from collapsing or payroll runs to be corrupted (just in time). No one hears about them. No one celebrates them. But there are billions of us on this planet achieving myth-level brilliance daily just by being responsible parents. Or just by being simply kind to fellow humans.
There is no default scripted life.
Edited: added "Or just by being simply kind to fellow humans."