[mrtksn]

I think you have a point but could it be that after some age we simply don’t have time to explore because we are required to exploit?

I personally know some quite old people who seem to be into exploring all the time with periods of exploitation and all of them are people with mundane jobs that end when it ends. Their mental capacity is at their hobbies and they sometimes invest into their hobbies a lot, however they would come up with other hobbies all the time.

That’s in contrast to the white collar folks who’s life becomes work and all they do outside of work is to pay for some curated experience like vacation to Paris or Cooking lessons. They never have time for anything, they deeply specialize at something like building systems that catch people engaging in known money laundering schemes.

After some age you are in track to specialize a lot, make a lot of money and spends that money within the acceptable framework with your peers.

Also, the effects of the algorithms could be strong too. I noticed that it has been quite some time since the last time I was bored deeply. At the slightest sign of boredom I find myself getting entertained on one of the few apps and website I visit. It makes me feel like I’m exploring but in reality, I rarely see anything that is not a variation of something from the narrative of the platform.