Actually, I think for a lot of people stabilization begins much earlier than the mid-century mark. The brain is fully developed about age 25. I have known many people who really haven't changed, outside of being somewhat wiser for experience, since that age. They even take pride in not changing.

I feel that others think they have to give up on learning because they like the click group they are into. If they keep on learning they would not have the same friends. It's sort of like a Trump cult thing without Trump.

It is a shame that the greatest learning machines in the world are given the attitude that school is a druggery, that learning things is useless, that they will never be used. I cannot remember,as a child, even one teacher that tried to make a class interesting, fun, challending. A shame.....hopefully that has changed since the fifties and sixties

There are many, perhaps even most, who give up on learning long before middle age.

And it is not entirely their fault. Don't forget there are huge industrial complexes, not just religion, but the consumer advertising industry, and large parts of the state and politics as well, which are devoted towards keeping people ignorant and immature. All basically for the very simple reason that, well educated, mature and mentally healthy people are not needy, they do not need to buy anything much at all, no product, no fashion, no luxuries, and no hateful ideologies. The products needed by those who left childhood behind, peace, temperance, knowledge and learning, being cheap, only children are full of wants. We have built a machine for making people infantile.

Glad you no longer hate widows and orphans. Instead of pity, educate yourself on empathy for widows and orphans.

Religion ... pure and faultless is this: to help widows and orphans in need and avoiding worldly corruption. James 1:27

I like your point about continually educating ones self. I'm more into learning now (will turn 50 this summer) than when I was in school. I was a terrible student but now I love learning about history and science especially.

Most people who hate always feel they are victims!!!

It is a waste of time effort and energy to hate anyone, let alone people who are religious. Very bad for the haters it is too.

You make some good points. I have found that only a minority of Americans seem to either want to continue to learn or grow after they reach middle age. The rest either choose to stubbornly remain willfully ignorant about what is going on and how things are changing, beyond and behind the charade of the corporate media's coverage of things, and the propaganda of the two major parties, or they choose to distract and numb themselves with addictions, chemicals, or mindless entertainment such as sports or video games. So effectively all these people who remain ignorant or choose to tune out or drop out of the fight against the powers that be, leave the rest of us basically to helplessly watch our country devolve into Idiocracy and a dystopian scifi movie, as we remain terribly outvoted and unrepresented in what remains of our so-called democracy. It's a good time to be within 20 years or less of one's death, because the future here is only going to get worse..

And it's not just people 50 or over, there are plenty of adults who are on the younger end of middle age that have the same negative traits and habits that I described above.... And as far as dirty words, nothing is more of a dirty word in America than the label intellectual, because here it is always accompanied with a sneer and an implication that the intellectual person is either without common sense, or an out of touch elitist, or possibly even mentally ill, but always with the implication that the person is not someone most people would enjoy socializing with or being involved with...