BY PHILLIP WITTMEYER

After the juvenile years of adolescence comes the time of young adulthood. Much that can be said about the Young soul is what would be said about a young person, an adult before middle age. The perceptions and activities of the Young soul are similar in description to a person in the third and fourth decades of a life span. After going through the teenage years and then leaving parents and striking out on his own, the young adult is in the process of building up the foundations of his career, home, and family. He is finding his place in life, establishing his success, and making his mark on the world. This is a very challenging phase.

Young souls are at the height of vigor with respect to material pursuits. Having the understanding of the two previous soul Ages inherent within themselves, they seek to tame the world at large. Young souls are the architects of civilization, the builders of empires, the leaders of business and economics. Their basic motivation is materialism, and they will work unstintingly for their material achievements. They are the most likely of the Ages to be "workaholics", constantly in a state of unrest, seeking their materialistic goals. More than any other soul Age, Young souls feel at home in the physical body — the flesh is their playground. They really like it on this planet. Popular interests are mundane things such as government, business, lawyering, sports, and policing.

Young souls tend to stand apart from others. They see themselves as special. They prefer to be with others of very similar persuasion, and to avoid those who are not of their clique. The Young soul Age is a summary or compilation of the characteristics of all the Traits in the Analysis Process. Like a person in the Discrimination Goal, they are picky and critical about things going on in their lives. Like a person in the Caution Mode, they are careful and thoughtful about what they are doing. Like a person with the Renunciation Feature, they find it difficult to be pleased with themselves. Like Artisans, Young souls are into the techniques of doing things right. Like a Skeptic, they are distrustful of the world they live in. Like a person in the Intellectual Center, the primary way they respond to the world is by mental thoughts about it.

The desire here is to win other people over to one's own point of view or make them over in their own image. The Young soul perceives "me" and "you", and wants to change "you" into "me". The Young soul wants to organize people into a society, a civilization, or a company. They believe every person should know his place in the rank and file of the culture. They believe in this sort of thing so much that they are willing to fight for it to convince others to do it their way. Wars are mostly Young soul phenomena (and sometimes Juvenile). Nationalism and imperialism are rampant in this stage of Maturation. If they don't conquer you in the business or economic world, Young souls will conquer you in the military. Young soul American leadership wants to make the world safe for its ideology — democracy. They call it the struggle to maintain freedom and liberty, but what Young souls really mean by this is that they don't want others telling them what to do — you do it my way instead. Since they want this liberty for themselves, they champion it for others. On the other hand, Young soul Russian leadership wants to bring the whole world around to its socialistic point of view, professedly for their own good. Really, both these supposedly noble ideologies are just excuses for "do it my way" taken to the extreme.

There are more Young souls in this nation and on this planet than any other soul Age. Between 40 and 45 percent of the population are Young souls. The planetary average is fifth Level Young. Therefore they are the most ordinary and conventional. They form the Establishment. In fact, Young souls have somewhat of a hang-up about normalcy. They want very much to be considered normal themselves, and they want everybody else to be what they consider normal. Young souls do not appreciate Child and Old souls especially, because these are at the extremes. This is just another "do it my way" manifestation. Young soul humor is to make fun of people who are different. There is some repressed hostility in this, and a lack of understanding. They tend to adhere to all social institutions and cultural norms, such as marriage, religion, law, politics, education, and family. Young souls find it distressing when Child souls or Old souls do not follow society's rules.

Among white collar Young souls, it is important to get the proper credentials for whatever it is one plans to do with his life. Other Young souls, who are in positions to promote the up-and-coming, look to this official seal of recognition. The Young soul will get the formal education to the limit of his intellectual capacity. He will be very concerned with making good grades. This might in fact be more important than what is actually being learned. He will belong to the fraternity in college, because there he will meet some of his future business contacts. After graduation, when a career is underway, he will become a member of the professional society of his occupation. There he will make more business contacts. Even more links will be formed with membership in such organizations as the Elks or Lions Club, the Chamber of Commerce, the Fraternal Order of this or that, Masonry, Shriners, and so on — clubs of all sorts. These are all Young soul type organizations formed for the purpose of pursuing money, power, and other material goals. After all, it's who you know if you want to get ahead in this world. They tend to live in the same neighborhoods also. The "yuppie" phenomenon is a manifestation of the Young soul Age. They attend financial seminars, Dale Carnegie courses, super-salesman conventions, and the like. They invest in the stock market. They seek to be "professionals", and their career is their life.

The Young soul displays his diplomas, membership certificates, and other credentials on the wall at his office. Trophies of any sort are also shown. They own status pets, pursue gourmet foods and drinks, own fancy or racy automobiles, and buy mansions to be filled with exotic furniture. They prefer to participate in status sports like golf and tennis at the Country Club. These are all emblems of success in life. A couple of Young soul advertising slogans are: "Diamonds are forever", and, "Clothes make the man". Young souls are the most competitive by nature of the soul Ages. They seek to climb to the top of whatever organization they find themselves in. They participate most willingly in the so-called "rat race" to make a buck.

Unionism is the way to make things happen with Young soul blue-collar workers — "do it my way" in another manifestation. Once again, the process here is Termination — making everyone a member of a team, because there is strength in numbers if they all know where they belong and behave as a unit.

In politics, the Young soul tends toward moderation: middle of the road, or maybe conservatism, and not the extremes of reactionary or liberal. They are neither innovators in terms of being progressive or regressive. The tendency is rather to build the bureaucracy of the government in an effort to maintain the status quo among the governed. Once again the desire for normalcy appears. The patriotism of nationalism is very much a part of their thinking. The political arena is perhaps the best place for Young souls to exercise their muscles, if not in the business world. In political philosophy, they usually value technological advantage over environmental considerations. They favor industry over ecology. As employers, Young souls value what they perceive to be the good of the company above the good of the individual employee.

Although more advanced than Baby and Infant souls, Young souls still have fairly simple perceptions about life. They rarely get introspective enough about themselves to question their motivations. Since they value material success so much, they usually ignore emotional, psychological, and spiritual considerations within and without themselves. They are only rarely involved in the mental health profession. When they are, they are likely to express it through psychiatry — the prescription of drugs to manipulate the mind through the body. Not often do they seek pure psychological counseling, and when they do, it is usually only necessary to put a label on their condition. There is no way to actually cure their problems, at least not in one lifetime. Their needs are fairly simple, just material possessions and "success" .Their lives are devoted to action rather than thought or feeling. The Monads (experiential units) which it is established for the Young soul to complete involve mostly the doing of things. Thus their attention is primarily outward, concerned with manipulating the environment.

Young souls are enamored with the glamour of the physical realm — new cars, fine homes, fancy clothes, an so on. They want to look good to others. They usually have a clean-cut, "all-American" appearance. Business suits and briefcases are the hallmark of a Young soul. Formality and sophistication is of the utmost importance. In terms of physical appearance, Young souls regard the Ken doll or Barbie doll look as ideal. Look on the covers of Cosmopolitan Magazine — glamour-seeking Young souls every one. All of this displays the Young soul's status- and class-consciousness. Everyone has to be made aware of his rank in the hierarchical structure of Young soul society.

Young souls seek mates either at the office or in single's bars after office hours. Young souls perceive love as "eros" — the playboy philosophy — glamour, romance, and sex such as one sees in thousands of advertisements, movies and television shows. They try to live the American Dream in their family lives: get married to an attractive person, buy an expensive house, have two or three intelligent, good-looking kids, and rise to the leadership of the company. Young souls do not understand it when this dream proves to be an illusion.

The great majority of television shows are produced by Young souls for Young soul consumption, paid for by Young soul advertisers. The "soap opera" is Young soul entertainment fare. The same goes for most enterprises in America and the world today, since Young souls are the most ambitious of the Ages regarding material achievement. Whatever is selling is what Young souls produce. They lack real imagination. Their works are uninspired and stylistic. They have little genuine innovative creativity. When a Mature soul makes a hit with an avant-garde product or service, Young souls jump in there to turn out crude, simple imitations of it in order to make money. They do not break any new ground. They just crank out copies, using the formula for past successes, without really understanding why it worked. They use the "tried and true" until they run it into the ground and it doesn't work any more.

The religion of the Young soul in this country is primarily mainstream Protestantism. Orthodox churches such as Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and Methodist are the haunt of Young souls. Nothing controversial or upsetting here. A lot of good business contacts are made here too. Young souls resist attempts of Mature souls to reform the church. They seek to proselytize others — convert them to their own faith. The evangelist Billy Graham, a seventh Level Young Sage, is a good current example of this stage of religious perception.

Young souls do not age gracefully. After spending their youth in pursuit of things, when they reach middle age they try to hang on to their youthful appearance with health regimens such as diet, exercise, vitamins, and spas. It is important to them to remain youngish.

 Next page | The Mature Soul Age
1, 2, 3, 4, 5