J. Feibleman coins an unusual term 'standpointlessness," as an optimal trait of midlife. "Standpointlessness is not vacillating indecision which would hardly be a sign of maturity. Rather, it represents an ability to shift subjectivity at will to another person or object. Such a flexible person may indeed have strong convictions and commitments, but he or she is able to bracket or suspend personal motives in order to enter empathically into the thoughts and feelings of another. This ability corresponds to the polarity between attachment and separateness that Levinson notes as one of the tasks of midlife individuation. We are well aware of the extremes of separateness, manifest most profoundly in schizophrenia, as a tragic aberration in human development. But the artist's separateness, and yet emphatic identity with the subject points to the kind of flexible distance intended by Levinson.
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-from Eugene C. Bianchi
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