Develop into Old Age
When an infant reaches 9 months old, it's a special milestone. The baby has been truly alive longer than she developed inside the womb.
Development continues at a rapid pace. She hits milestones like babbling, crawling, walking, and then reaches adolescence and keeps developing her personality, confidence, and habits which can last decades longer.
Development, however, seems to be focused on children, rather than adults, ending around college when you develop a sense of who you are. In fact, there are entire college majors and doctorate degrees in child development, yet I've never heard of the term adult development.
When Michelangelo completed his masterpiece, the Pietà , which depicts the poignant scene of a mother, Mary, holding her son, Jesus, after his crucifixion, the maestro just reached the ripe age of 25.
Yet legend has it that Michelangelo became filled with melancholy upon its completion, thinking to himself, "I am 25 years old and I will never create something else this beautiful again."
If he stopped developing, he would have not continued to sculpt the gargantuan David. He would have not painted the frescos in the Sistine Chapel. He described the experience as "torture" and stated, "I am not a painter." Still, thankfully, he endured. At age 71, he redesigned the dome of St. Peter's Basilica, the largest construction project of its day, after having spent a grueling 40 years designing the tomb of Pope Julius II! The epic continued and right before his death, at nearly 89 years old, he climbed up the dome to inspect it!
At the Sistine Chapel's focal point, Michelangelo painted God as an old man, oddly inside a womb, reaching out to the youthful Adam. Some believe this depicts God as a womb for society, but perhaps he painted this elderly man inside a womb because he knew that still into old age development is required.
The Creation of Adam