Bonus story ..
I was visiting a friend in the UK a while ago and we talked about this. We stayed up all night eating ice cream, watching cartoons and playing with his extensive Transformers collection. We both agreed that if 12yo us could see us they would think we were the coolest and had achieved our younger selfs life goals.
I think it depends on how deep they got to see and know the details of my life and values and choices. They’d probably be pretty happy about a lot of superficial and material things, broad strokes details and such- but our values and world views and life experiences are so totally different that I know my 12yo self couldn’t understand and probably wouldn’t agree with my adult self. The world has changed so much since I was that age. We have internet now, all sorts of things that my young self couldn’t really know. With wisdom and experience I’ve come to see the world and so many issues differently than I did then. I am not speaking for everyone because some 12yo’s are good kids or well grounded- I was not a child that adult me would get along with, so the fact I’ve changed so much to be that distant from my child self is something adult me is happy about. I sometimes play with ideas like this for fun- but for the most part I don’t judge myself off ideas from less mature versions me.
I was visiting a friend in the UK a while ago and we talked about this. We stayed up all night eating ice cream, watching cartoons and playing with his extensive Transformers collection. We both agreed that if 12yo us could see us they would think we were the coolest and had achieved our younger selfs life goals.