It seems to me that the people you describe as being on "autopilot" tend to be people that, for whatever reason, do not place a lot of value on the concept of improving oneself (at least, improving oneself in the manner you described, via constant learning, curiosity, and open-mindedness). These people simply have other priorities/worries taking up their time - making money, taking care of family, etc. I myself feel much like you - if I'm not constantly studying something or learning a new skill, I feel like I am stagnating. However, it is hard to make the case for people to constantly accumulate knowledge when most people have the knowledge they need to get by and accomplish their goals. What benefit is it for me to practice piano as a software engineer? I get a profound sense of satisfaction at seeing my skill improve and deeper appreciation for professional musicians, but is it necessary for me to do so? What does the average person really get out of reading, say, Plato's dialogues, when it comes to things like establishing a stable life, climbing the corporate ladder, or paying their bills, if they already believe they have a grasp on things? What is the case to be made for continuous improvement over improvement to the point of necessity, and no further?

I don't think I do, let me better explain myself:

From what I've pieced together, you have some value system that assesses goodness of growth. Growth is arbitrary and personal. You've set up a red herring in your idea of growth.

To frame it from first principals - we live in a continually evolving system, it's basically mandatory for any individual to "grow" in more ways than one: firstly, people have to navigate that ever-changing environment and as such are exposed to novel information and they have (at a biological level) to update their priors; secondly, at a biological level, invisible though it may be, people are in constant flux internally, now it's speculation, but I'd posit that at a biological level emotions, and boredom, and restlessness are all evolutionary features to press people towards some point, and as a sub-point to this, we're constantly remodeling our brains with our minds and thus I would posit we can confer "growth" as, ostensibly, an individuals model is constantly reorienting itself closer to the ground truth that the stimuli from the environment inculcates.

What I'm saying is that from my view, the contour you've used to define growth is a trajectory towards some point /you/ approve of, some average of things that are made visible to you by others. It seems you want more people to conform to your trajectory, which hey, that's fine, but you shouldn't harbor the expectation of people to do so. Some people want to memorize trivia about Game of Thrones so they can be the go-to authority in their social circle on the topic. Other people like to ride out their cognitive-emotional rollercoasters while rolling around in bed late into the day. Other people keep their growth dead silent. And every other conceivable permutation of that is going on right now, it just doesn't look productive.

And it's good this way. If everybody conformed to one particular trajectory most would quickly be left behind. If everybody followed a single trajectory, we'd lose the treasure of the many diverse forking paths that make up the human space.