[HN Gopher] The demographic and cultural roots of the midlife cr...
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The demographic and cultural roots of the midlife crisis
Author : mayiplease
Score : 55 points
Date : 2020-12-16 19:43 UTC (3 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (royalsocietypublishing.org)
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| This has been going on a long time. Take for example Julius
| Caesar at the age of 33 as recorded by Plutarch:
|
| > In like manner we are told again that, in Spain, when he was at
| leisure and was reading from the history of Alexander, he was
| lost in thought for a long time, and then burst into tears. His
| friends were astonished, and asked the reason for his tears. "Do
| you not think," said he, "it is matter for sorrow that while
| Alexander, at my age, was already king of so many peoples, I have
| as yet achieved no brilliant success?"
|
| I think, at least for a lot of men, that a huge cause of the mid-
| life crisis is the death of boyhood dreams. Many of us dream of
| accomplishing great things. And it seems we have our whole life
| before us and limitless opportunities. However, by the time we
| reach midlife, we realize that time is running out, our physical
| prowess is on the way down, and we will never accomplish all that
| we have dreamed.
| standardUser wrote:
| While it's interesting to read about these concepts in the
| context of the time they were established (even if they do come
| off as hopelessly classist) I have always despised how they
| become conventional wisdom far beyond their shelf life. It
| compels people to ignore their unique life circumstances in favor
| of a shortcut explanation that may not apply to them at all. I've
| always been similarly wary of concepts like "rebound
| relationships" or "best years of your life". If we have a bunch
| of de-personalized frameworks to help explain the course of our
| own lives, it only moves us farther away from seeing our lives
| for what they really are. Maybe that relationship ended because
| you have attachment issues, not just because it happened to
| follow shortly after a different relationship. But if you and
| people around you write it off as just another classic "rebound",
| then you may miss out on the ability to learn something about
| yourself.
| brundolf wrote:
| I'm in my late 20s, and already starting to feel some anxiety
| around the nearing conclusion of what could be called my "youth".
| But my therapist, in his forties, has experienced (and relayed to
| me) the "life begins at 40" philosophy (I didn't actually realize
| it was something other people said until I saw this article).
|
| It's not just wishful thinking for him: he felt that he didn't
| really figure out who he was, didn't really start self-
| actualizing en force before 40. Having known him a few years,
| it's clear to me that he genuinely has a very balanced and happy
| life, one with a family that he loves but also with his own goals
| and small pleasures, his own meaningful friendships, etc.
|
| So I guess: I would tend to agree that the midlife crisis is a
| trap constructed by our western culture, and one that it's very
| possible to simply pass by. I think you just have to never stop
| working on yourself and asking (and listening to) what your needs
| are. Keep a balanced life of relationships, and pursuits, and
| self-care, and - yes - some accomplishments too. Don't put all
| your eggs in one basket. Don't get complacent, but don't burn out
| either. Be in it for the long haul.
| nonbirithm wrote:
| As someone who is not yet 30 and is naive to the mindset of a
| 40-year-old, I get the impression that some people have it
| figured out sooner than others. Or if not having "the" thing
| figured out, have _something at all_ figured out. This is
| dangerous for me because my mindset is that if I 'm not
| spending most of my time on something, I will not be able to
| believe I'm "taking it seriously." From past experience, the
| end results of not spending enough time on what I did say as
| much. It is hard for me to leave my tunnel vision and see other
| things. (I have evidence this can be partially explained by a
| mental health diagnosis, but it isn't an excuse.)
|
| As typical, this is probably amplified by social media. Look at
| people's Twitter bios and look at how many describing words
| they use. Artist. Musician. Writer. Livestreamer. Some of these
| people got started when they were not even teenagers. As a
| result it's difficult not to feel as if you haven't found the
| words you'd be comfortable putting in your own bio. Why label
| yourself as such and such if you don't feel like you deserve it
| yet? (At least not to the extent that you see people's best
| selves being portrayed in their feeds.)
|
| But of course, ignoring comparisons to others, if those people
| found themselves there at some point, there would probablybe no
| reason not to write those words describing themselves. I end up
| believing I can only "find myself there" by deliberate action,
| not casually following a passion until you happen to arrive
| where you want. Everybody says memorable accomplishments
| require hard work.
| brundolf wrote:
| I think you're being too hard on yourself, and if I may say,
| I think therapy could help you work some of this out (fwiw I
| believe nearly every person on the planet could benefit from
| at least a little therapy).
|
| Here's one way to try reframing it for now: I see the point
| of life as maximizing happiness for myself and others. So if
| I'm setting rigorous expectations for myself that don't
| actually contribute to that purpose in any way, and in fact
| partly sabotage it by making me miserable, there's no logical
| reason to hold those expectations in the first place.
|
| What do you or anyone else gain from "deserving" to put
| titles for yourself in your Twitter bio? Do those activities
| if they make you happy; if they don't, then don't waste
| energy on them. And certainly don't do them just to say that
| you did.
| hinkley wrote:
| As my friend's parents put it, on the subject of adventures: At
| 40 you have the means to do many things, and the health to
| still do them.
|
| I think it does require keeping an inventory of dreams and
| assets, if-this-then-that style, but I don't think that has the
| form of a midlife crisis. Those are less calculated in nature
| and manner.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Maybe your therapist can say life begins at 40 because for a
| therapist their career starts kicking into high gear at that
| point and really just keeps going upward until retirement. For
| a software developer your career can start heading downhill
| even before 40 - age seems to have no advantage for software
| developers like it does for therapists, doctors and lawyers.
| vmception wrote:
| Look, if you suddenly get a new interest that is pretty flashy
| and you also have a cohesive family unit and kids, people will
| say you have a midlife crisis. If you don't, you are just cool
| guy successful enough to do your own thing.
|
| That's it.
| emerged wrote:
| I'm about to turn 40 and have never felt less in crisis.
| Although I have never had any fear of my own mortality which
| could be what drives the crisis for many people. I also don't
| tend to care much about what I'm "supposed" to do in life vs
| what I want to do.
| brundolf wrote:
| Historically I've taken the things "I want to do" and turned
| them into things "I'm supposed to do", and in the process
| built up a lot of stress over them. But that's something I've
| been working on changing, mainly via therapy :)
| tayo42 wrote:
| Curious if your hobbies include anything physical? Turned 30
| recently and I feel like there's a good chance I won't do
| what I want in sports. Not so much about mortality but
| feeling your self not be as athletic as you have sucks and it
| only gets worse.
| contingencies wrote:
| I'm approaching 40 and in some ways have never felt _more_ in
| crisis. Partly this is because having assets means exposure
| to new forms of risk. Major business or life decisions
| require days of effort over periods of weeks because the
| complexity and stakes now cross scope and potentiality
| boundaries that are unsettling at best and downright scary if
| not tackled in a structured fashion. In short, while I now
| have better tools, resources, and experience there is nobody
| to delegate the most critical decision making to, the stakes
| are vastly increased and the results don 't just affect me
| anymore, therefore any execution what Bezos calls a 'type 1
| decision' (effectively irreversible) must now be extremely
| well considered. Things that help: supportive investors, good
| lawyers, good doctors, the maintenance of long term
| friendships completely outside of work and family circles,
| family, exercise, nature.
| yters wrote:
| Plato seems to have shared this view. He said one shouldn't
| engage in philosophy, life's most important pursuit, until one
| turns 40.
| kkoncevicius wrote:
| Interestingly same suggestion is found in Kabbalah: in order
| to study it you have to be above 40 years old, expert in
| Talmud, and expert in Jewish law.
| grammarisking wrote:
| 40 years is also a significant age within Islam, whereby a
| person usually reaches their prime. Explicitly mentioned in
| this verse for example:
|
| "We have commanded people to honour their parents. Their
| mothers bore them in hardship and delivered them in
| hardship. Their [?]period of[?] bearing and weaning is
| thirty months. In time, when the child reaches their prime
| at the age of forty, they pray, "My Lord! Inspire me to
| [?]always[?] be thankful for Your favours which You blessed
| me and my parents with, and to do good deeds that please
| You. And instil righteousness in my offspring. I truly
| repent to You, and I truly submit [?]to Your Will[?]."[1]
|
| [1]https://quran.com/46/15
| africanboy wrote:
| > life begins at 40
|
| Can confirm!
|
| But not in the way people usually think, being younger is
| awesome while being 40 is not as much.
|
| But I am completely self aware and don't think anymore that I
| am missing something like I did before.
|
| It doesn't really has to do with 40 as a number, it has to do
| with the moment one starts accepting himself and lives life the
| way it was supposed to be lived.
|
| Of course thing change with age, but as someone that still is a
| night owl and still sleep like a baby and can't wake up easily
| early in the morning, there is also the fact that you get
| treated like an adult with their own personality and accepted
| for that (or not accepted but you learned to not care that much
| and to move on)
|
| So, if you ask me, middle life crisis was worse at 30 than at
| 40.
|
| When I'll be 50 I'll know more, but until now everything has
| been better in terms of accepting those things that would
| depress me or make me angry 10 years ago.
| kkoncevicius wrote:
| That might also be related to the occupation of your therapist
| - being, well, a therapist. Seems like almost everyone would
| choose an older person as their therapist; and conversely,
| hardly anyone, at, say 40 years old, would go see a 20 year old
| therapist. So their career really start taking off at maybe 40
| and it steadily climbs up.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| My wife is a therapist. All the therapists in her office are
| - always - busy, even if they're 22.
|
| People seek all kinds of qualities in a therapist. "Older and
| wiser" is not a ubiquitous appeal.
| kkoncevicius wrote:
| Nice coincidence - my wife is also a therapist. But to get
| there, in my country, you need a lot of work and training,
| you cannot really be a 22-year old therapists. First you
| have to finish psychology (ages from 18 to 22), then finish
| Master's degree in psychology (22 to 24) and then another 6
| years (24-30) for psychodynamic psychotherapy training
| coupled with regular therapy for yourself under a more
| experience advisor. And finally after that you can start
| calling yourself a psychotherapist.
|
| Here at 22 you can, at most, be a psychologist, which is a
| different thing. They have a lot of work - intelligence
| tests, emotional support, advice about social stress. But
| they don't do therapy.
| brundolf wrote:
| Maybe, though I don't think he's the type who sees his career
| as the first or second most important thing in his life
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Maybe not, but it's how he derives his income. Having a
| stable income really helps with outlook. Conversely, being
| worried about where your income might be headed in the
| future is going to negatively effect your outlook.
| trianglem wrote:
| Tangentially related, but I think that there's a real problem in
| western society around the teen years. Since corporal punishment
| is not allowed, parents tend to discipline their kids by
| attacking their self worth. This leads to a reliable pattern of
| teens "hating" their parents, a phenomenon that is non existent
| in the rest of the world especially Asia. This also leads to a
| huge disparity in what percentage of kids end up becoming
| successful adults even when all basic needs are met.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Corporal punishment doesn't exactly prevent teens hating their
| parents, either.
|
| The most violent instance I've seen (as opposed to experienced)
| was within a culture that has very high respect for elders. A
| 20-something guy's dad beat him repeatedly with a log (3"
| diameter with the rough bark on doesn't really count as a
| stick) because the 20-something said something mean to his (the
| 20-something's) wife. The 20-something needed _some_ kind of
| reprimand, but I wouldn 't accept that kind of violence in
| trade for higher "respect" for elders.
| beepboopbeep wrote:
| I have a personal theory that we enter into a "crisis" of some
| sort roughly every 5 years. Essentially 1-2 years of
| definition/growth/change, 2 years-ish of normalcy post change,
| 1-2 years of redefinition as things become old and others become
| new/interesting.
|
| A perpetual cycle of shifting identity as we change internally
| and externally. I think it's a good thing to have and understand,
| but can be overwhelming as well.
|
| I have _zero_ evidence of this, it 's just kind of based on my
| own observations. It's helped me to not be so hard on my self
| though when I find my tastes, interests, and identity changing
| over time.
| Swizec wrote:
| It's the many lives theory! Taked about 7 years to focus on a
| thing effectively, leading to roughly 11 lives for most of us.
|
| https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-09-02
| beepboopbeep wrote:
| This is a great perspective on it, thank you! I'll be sending
| this around to a few folks
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| You could probably extrapolate the infant, child, adolescent,
| and adult's growth and development model (with hormone
| increases and decreases) to find evidence. I think your hunch
| is pretty cool and spot on for my experience as well. Surely,
| too, do external events either speed up or slow down some parts
| - but the core idea of new stage change, stasis, then
| redefinition could be worth exploring.
| the_cat_kittles wrote:
| absolutely. the daily cycle, the weekly cycle, the quarterly
| cycle, the yearly cycle, and the 5-10 year cycle. i also have
| nothing but my own anecdotal evidence for this. i think its
| hard to realize that things that last for several years still
| do come to an end in many cases, their cycle is just slower.
| the fact that there isnt a term for the 5-10 year cycle is
| evidence that we are kinda blind to it.
| resu_nimda wrote:
| I like to think in terms of "cycles" in a similar manner,
| except that there are multiple overlapping cycles of different
| periods (some closer to weekly/monthly), all summed together.
| On any given day you will be in a somewhat unique position.
| Basically a Fourier transform for your psyche.
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