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The older I get, the more apparent it becomes that there are rarely ever “adults in the room”, and it’s a kind of miracle that anything works at all.

Seeing things like this really drives that home. A lot of people are not really sure what’s going on. Myself included, to be sure.

It's worse because when someone tries to show what it is to act like an adult among their peer group, like say at work, they get booed and put down. The best thing to do then as individuals is to just be quiet and build their wealth+health, while others get trapped by their mediocrity.
"If people would know how little brain is ruling the world, they would die of fear" - Ivo Andric
When I was a teenager at high school I used to compare everyone else to myself a lot (I think everyone does since it’s part of building your identity)

I remember thinking “ok there’s a future doctor, and there’s a great manager of some sort”

But I never really grokked that everyone from those classes is now in society somewhere. Remember that idiot sitting there chewing the wood on his desk? He probably has a job now - what on earth is he doing?!

I suspect this isn’t common but I have a nice memory of a desk chewer who was probably the first out of any of us to earn his own home and financial independence.

He figured out that school wasn’t working, went into heavy machinery operation, bought himself an excavator as soon as he could, and went into business for himself. Now his peers were finishing university and he was settling into his first home and buying new machines for his business.

He wasn’t an academic, but he was smart and self aware enough to pursue what made sense to him. Super humble guy, too.

When the same kinds of people who used to laugh at him were shocked that he bought a home while they couldn’t afford one for a decade or more, he was extremely modest about it.

I suspect he had some positive mentorship in the mix somewhere. But also, his struggles in school weren’t strong indicators of his overall competence and potential. Just enough to cause him to give up on school. I’m glad it worked out for him.

Many people who appeared like him superficially are likely not doing so well.

I managed to spend one night in custody in a prison instead of the police department.

The furniture had an uncanny resemblance to the furniture in the run-down public school I went to.

And the drawing on the walls unmistakably resembled the writing on the public school toilets, too.

And it occurred to me. It's the same people. And their hand writing and stick men had not improved.

Arrested development is extremely common among people who wind up in prison.
"True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country."

Vonnegut

And then there is the other side. That guy with unbelievably high potential who completely fumbles his life and just not able to get his act together... (Even worse when it happens to be you)
Reminds me of China trying to pass off Top Gun movie footage as real.