A Different Kind Of Middle Age Crisis
Some get a tattoo, or they divorce. Some others pay for hair or breast implants—why not both at the same time—or a loud motorbike. Not everyone transitions to their 40s the same way. Fair enough. My own path to the infamous four decades—both professionally and personally—has proved to be shaped by an increasing need for more simplicity, more mental freedom, more creativity and, fundamentally, more fun. All my decisions in the last several years have reflected this. Interestingly, without being fully aware of it. My middle age crisis is more about becoming more retrospective and about looking back to the last 7, 8 years of my life1 only to discover a pattern where I was changing jobs, companies and even continents because I was relentlessly wanting a more meaningful, impactful, fulfilling life.
Don’t we all? Sure, but many never do anything about it.
Was it easy? Hell no. Am I done with the journey? Definitely not.
Becoming middle aged has helped me better realize I am just one more face in a sea of infinite unknown faces, and to be absolutely ok with that. Even if no single soul cares a dime about the things I do, those things are my own. I feel a reasonable pride knowing that I can put together thoughts, sounds and stories no one else can.
I have also better understood that, although everything is ultimately left to chance, and even if probabilities are infinitesimal, I must keep on trying and trying if I want to achieve something. Winning the lottery, however improbable, is more likely for those who play compared to those who don’t.
So, now being officially middle aged, I will not lose a heartbeat and keep on creating. I have learned to live with a lovely ghost audience and with a growing awareness that everything I create out of my average ingenuity is, at the end of the day, purely for myself. Kurt Vonnegut said:
Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.
At 41, I can’t dance and I can’t sing, but I can try like anything. I have developed the stubbornness of the hunter, who finds pleasure in the chase and gets bored with the conquest.
Søren Kierkegaard said life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards