Individual humans are usually strange and peculiar in many ways. In consequence, they need to spend great effort to be like everybody else, with varying degrees of success. This visible and invisible effort at conforming, at being accepted by others, and at living a normal life, is one of the most daunting tasks of coming of age and crafting an adult life. In northern Egypt where I have conducted fieldwork for many years, many people take this work for granted but struggle to succeed. Others are critical of it but pursue it all the same. Few search for alternatives.

Recent public and academic interest in youth and especially Muslim youth (what about Christian youth, one may wonder) has often highlighted three kinds of youthful figures: actively pious people searching to fashion their lives according to religious ideals; revolutionary activists who seem to embody the desire of „the youth“ for freedom, dignity and a better life; and migrants and refugees who take risks and face hardship in their search for a better future. All these figures embody transformation and change. They all do deserve attention indeed, but what they leave out of sight is the fact that much of the time, young and not so young people alike are busy with realising taken-for-granted expectations and striving for „stability“ - that is, the means to realize a full conventional adulthood. The paradox, however, is that just like pursuits of transformation may fail or be successful in unintended ways, also pursuits of stability may produce something else than expected. The attempt to reproduce the known good – same as ever, only better – propels societal dynamics that can have unsettling consequences.

Based on conversations with a handful of Egyptian men in their 20s and 30s who are in the process of establishing themselves socially, the presentation revisits some themes and arguments of my book Egypt in the Future Tense, sketching possible questions for future research.