Between Becoming and Unbecoming : Life's Three Movements

I have often pondered why life’s trajectory feels like a cyclic symphony — one that begins with unbounded curiosity, surges through a phase of restless striving, and eventually settles into a deeper tranquility of relinquishment. Over time, through reading, conversing, and quietly observing my own consciousness, I’ve come to realize that our existence may be elegantly (though never rigidly) distilled into three profound arcs :

1. Learning (roughly birth to twenty-five)
2. Becoming (roughly twenty-five to fifty)
3. Unbecoming (fifty and beyond)

Though it might be tempting to see these divisions as simplistic, I find them remarkably resonant with philosophical, psychological, and neurobiological insights. My intention in this piece of reflection is to explore how these arcs speak to a universal tapestry of the human condition — one colored by knowledge, identity, and the eventual transcendence of both.

The Years of Learning : Absorption & Consumption

During our first twenty or so years, we are sponges soaking up the norms, languages, values, and knowledge that surround us. This is not just a rote ingestion of information — it is a process shaped by the interplay of nature and nurture. In this period, the brain’s prefrontal cortex is in a critical state of development, forging synapses at an astounding rate. Neuroscientists like Patricia K. Kuhl, who has studied infants’ capacity to learn language, have demonstrated that children are biologically wired to internalize their environment at astonishing speed. What they absorb isn’t merely academic content; it’s also the subtle grammar of cultural norms, unspoken emotional cues, and deep-seated belief systems that often remain unchallenged for years.

To me, it seems there is a strong parallel between early life learning and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, where one is given shadows on a wall (cultural constructs, social scripts, and family expectations) and internalizes them as reality. The process is often unconscious — one does not yet have the advanced meta-cognition to question or challenge these shadows. We believe what we are taught because that is the only world we know. Yet this stage also harbors the seeds of self-awareness. Psychologist Jean Piaget’s schema suggests that children progress through stages of cognitive development, eventually gaining the ability to think abstractly and hypothetically. By the time we approach our mid-twenties, the brain’s plasticity grants us the capacity not only to learn new skills but also to question them — to step outside what we’ve ingested and ask : Do I truly believe this, or was it simply handed to me? For many, that question emerges quietly, nudging at the edges of consciousness. But it marks the shift from mere absorption to the stirrings of independent identity. This transitional threshold lays the groundwork for what I call the Years of Becoming.

The Years of Becoming : Constructing an Identity from Hard-Won Agency

Somewhere around our mid-twenties, we usually find ourselves thrust into an arena of ambition, responsibility, and complex social dynamics. We begin to build : careers, relationships, perhaps families or projects of personal legacy. If the first phase was passive receptivity, the second is active self-assertion. We harness the skills and knowledge gleaned from the first stage to engage with the world on our terms. This is the period of intense “becoming.” I see this metamorphosis not merely as a pragmatic adaptation to adult life, but as a deep, identity-shaping odyssey. Developmental psychologists like Erik Erikson refer to the challenge of establishing intimacy and generativity during these ages. We wrestle with our place in society, question the structures around us (political, cultural, corporate), and try to shape a personal moral compass distinct from what we once uncritically adopted.

In the sphere of cognition and neuroscience, the prefrontal cortex reaches full maturity sometime in our late twenties, bestowing greater impulse control, planning abilities, and a nuanced understanding of risk-reward. This neurological sophistication aligns with the capacity to launch ventures, commit to relationships, or fervently chase professional success.

Yet I also notice a shadow side to the Years of Becoming : the abiding risk of conflating our constructed identity with who we truly are. The sociologist Erving Goffman talked about “front stage” and “back stage” behaviors — how we often perform roles for society. In our quest to become something, we might over-identify with roles, job titles, or external achievements. We try to “arrive” — to brand ourselves with a recognized label that validates our sense of worth. The result can be a scramble for approval, money, or status, culminating in a gnawing sense that we are perpetually unfulfilled. I recall the existentialist perspective : Jean-Paul Sartre famously insisted we are “condemned to be free.” Freedom here implies the responsibility to define ourselves — no cosmic blueprint exists. We conjure an identity through our choices, day after day, constructing a fragile mosaic of meaning. The problem arises when the mosaic becomes so elaborate, so externally validated, that we fear changing it — fear discovering that maybe none of it truly touches our deeper core. Thus, these middle decades can be simultaneously exhilarating and deeply precarious. We cling to illusions of permanence in a world that is, at every level, ephemeral. We harbor a desperate desire for recognition and become either undone by others’ judgments or inflated by their praise. The “I” we build can overshadow the very consciousness doing the building.

The Years of Unbecoming : Embracing the Truth Beyond All Constructs

Past the age of fifty, for many, an internal shift quietly begins — or perhaps roars in after a crisis. One starts to look back at the carefully curated identity of the preceding decades and wonders : “Who was that for? Was that truly me, or a performance tailored to society’s script?” I call this phase the Years of Unbecoming. After so much learning and becoming, there often arises a desire, even an urgent need, to peel away what has proven unnecessary or illusory. This is not necessarily renunciation in the sense of heroic spiritual feats. It can be more subtle — a recalibration, a serene surrender to the flow of life.

Neuroscience again offers a fascinating parallel here : The adult brain, after a certain age, prunes synaptic connections more aggressively, focusing on efficiency. While we may not form new memories or new synapses at the same feverish pace as in our youth, we often gain deeper insight, a capacity to distill complexities into essential truths. This is sometimes referred to as “wisdom,” not just knowledge — an ability to discern what truly matters amidst a sea of distractions. Philosophical traditions across the globe talk about this period in varied ways. In the Indian tradition, there is the concept of vanaprastha and eventually sannyasa — the forest-dwelling stages of life where one detaches from the structures of society, living more in introspection. In certain strands of Zen Buddhism, the idea of “letting go” is central to achieving true insight; after years of effort in seeking enlightenment, the final step is often a paradoxical abandoning of the search itself. One stops identifying with the mind’s incessant chatter and rests in pure awareness.

I reflect on the notion that after building an identity — career, accolades, personal brand — there is a quiet invitation to dissolve into the background. It is a space where success is measured not by external achievements but by how free one is from the tyranny of needing them. The psychologist Abraham Maslow described a final stage beyond even self-actualization, something akin to self-transcendence, wherein an individual’s locus of meaning extends beyond personal success to a universal sense of service or simply being. Modern society, of course, frequently resists this arc. Many remain fixated on external validations well into their later decades, partly because the cultural narrative (especially in capitalist societies) encourages “ever more” : more success, more relevance, more consumption. But for those who tune in, the post-fifty horizon can mark a tender metamorphosis : a recognition that life's fullness does not lie in the endless pursuit of the next milestone, but in the gentle relinquishment of illusions — the illusions of permanent identity, the illusions of control over the unpredictable swirl of existence.

“To say something new, one must first unbecome all that has already been said.”
— True creation arises from shedding borrowed voices and identities.

The Wholeness of the Arc : Learning, Becoming, Unbecoming

If these three phases form a natural arc, then the real beauty is in how they complement and even heal one another. Learning saturates us with possibility; becoming helps us create, refine, and test our mettle in the world; unbecoming frees us from the illusions we constructed along the way.

There is a cyclical integrity here :

• Learning is not just the naive acceptance of the external; it’s also the seeding of curiosity that one day allows deeper insights.
• Becoming is the intense forging of identity, a cosmic dance of growth — yet it can be undone if we place all our sense of self in those constructs.
• Unbecoming is the spaciousness that remains when we step beyond the illusions of identity, returning to a childlike wonder, but now with profound awareness.

One might ask : Do we truly have to wait until fifty to unbecome? Perhaps not literally. Many spiritual seekers or reflective souls experience glimpses of that inner liberation much earlier. Age is neither an absolute gate nor a guarantee. It’s more of a symbolic milestone indicating that, by then, one has had decades to see the patterns, illusions, and ephemeral nature of worldly success. But this arc remains instructive because it resonates with how people generally develop. The tasks of the mind, body, and spirit shift across decades. The eventual longing for essence over appearance feels natural, even if postponed by modern commercial or social pressures.

My Reflections on a Lifelong Path

As I hold these three arcs in mind, I realize it is less about dividing life into neat boxes and more about the fluid interplay of knowledge, identity, and release :

1. We learn so we can understand something of the world and ourselves.
2. We become so we can enact our potentials, shaping a life in line with what we truly value.
3. We unbecome to embrace a deeper authenticity, letting go of what was never truly ours — external validations, illusions of permanency, or even the notion that we must be “someone” in the eyes of the world.

From a scientific lens, this journey can be seen in the brain’s evolving structure : from rapid neural expansion in youth, to consolidation and mastery in midlife, to an eventual paring down that can foster deep wisdom. From a philosophical lens, it parallels age-old teachings about the illusions of self and the necessity of transcending them. From an existential lens, it addresses our fundamental restlessness with simply being — until we realize that being, stripped of all pretensions, is our only enduring home. In the end, I find it deeply comforting that the trajectory of life may be cyclical rather than linear. We start by knowing nothing, spend decades pretending we know everything, and then gently discover we know very little — and that is what sets us free. For all our learning, building, and performing, it is often the willingness to unlearn, dismantle, and rest in not-knowing that yields the most profound sense of belonging to ourselves and to the cosmos.

“We start by knowing nothing, spend decades pretending we know everything, and then gently discover we know very little — and that is what sets us free.”

Conclusion

If life truly unfolds in these arcs — learning, becoming, and unbecoming — then the essence might be to cultivate the strengths and wonders of each phase without becoming trapped in them. The first phase invites curiosity and raw openness, the second demands grit and creative energy, and the third beckons us to release everything that no longer serves or resonates. In each, there is a distinct flavor of wisdom :

• From learning, we gain knowledge and a sense of possibility.
• From becoming, we gain experience, creativity, and the forging of character.
• From unbecoming, we gain serenity, depth, and the unshakable clarity that the truest self emerges when we shed all that is false or superficial.

To me, this is a comforting and liberating thought. Rather than perceiving aging or pivoting life-stages as a decline, I see them as a symphony of expansion and contraction — a fractal blossoming where each petal eventually folds back, returning us to a pristine core. Our lives may be ephemeral, yet in acknowledging and honoring this ephemeral arc, we discover a timeless wisdom that transcends any single phase of our existence.

In the grand sweep of cosmic events, a human life is but a fleeting speck. Yet the consciousness that animates it can taste eternity when freed from illusions. Perhaps that is the greatest gift of unbecoming : to stand at the edge of one’s carefully built identity, let the illusions fall away, and remain at peace with the boundless silence that remains.

Thanks for dropping by !

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Disclaimer : Everything written above, I owe to the great minds I've encountered and the voices I’ve heard along the way.