I wrote a slightly shorter version of this recently elsewhere, and I have discussed these ideas with friends too.
The context is that everyone alive is part of human evolution. Everyone has a role. Everyone is connected as part of nature and cosmos and energies that we do not understand very well (how can we, given the nature of infinity?).
The context is that we each react differently to different people and vice versa.
We grow in groups, not in isolation.
Life is our own unique ‘journey’ within which we make our own choices about how to grow, especially in response to challenges (traumas, mistakes especially).
We might imagine that we are more, or less, than we are (in the vast universe of what we imagine to be reality), and yet we have incredible mind power to channel abundance and energies that defy description via human constructs.
Optimism and love seem to me to be more beautiful energies than criticising or judging others.
Each of us is doing our best in the ways we are trying to navigate life.
And so…
I reason that we need people at every level and in every dimension of understanding, because everyone is learning in their own ways and dimensions, and therefore from their own chosen teachers and guides.
Learning about life and death 'externally' and self-discovery (of the same) is not done in isolation; on the contrary it's done via the ever-changing relationships we have with sources of information (which one way or another is from a person or other people).
Broadly: Infants learn to read and write. Teens learn to become independent and find mates. 20-30somethings learn to start and raise families. Mid-life we learn about death and grief and purpose and meaning.
This is not a fixed absolute life-stage pattern; it’s very fluid.
Erik Erikson’s work is an emergent life-stage model that IMHO explains well.
We learn and grow and repeat our lessons until we are ready to progress in maturity and increasing our comfort in uncertainty.
Life is a balance, and balance is a process not a state.
Everyone has a part to play, as a teacher and healer, a learner and creative.
Some are parents and grandparents. Some are neither. Some die as babies or children. Some live to see all their children and grandchildren perish.
Who are we to judge another?
It's about cybernetics and connections, and the beauty of natural systems, such as humanity and all else.
It’s about forgiveness too, especially of ourselves and who we thought we were; as we grow, each in our own ways, from conception to whatever death actually is.