Damn. Sometimes you’re a fucking poet, @John_Many_Jars
And @wumpus, that entire post you just did there finally gave me a better understanding of what you’re feeling. Nice job there. I personally have nothing to suggest (I never had a kid, but reading that makes me think I missed something good…or at least overwhelming), but kudos for making it more clear to me.
Somehow I kinda missed this essential link you shared, but it is crazily accurate to my current situation.
In recent work, however, U-curve researchers have begun to find evidence that is harder to dismiss as mere statistical correlation. Oswald, Terence Cheng, and Nattavudh Powdthavee have found the U-curve in four longitudinal data sets from three countries: an important kind of evidence, because it traces the lived experiences of individuals over time, rather than comparing people of various ages in a statistical snapshot. Likewise, Blanchflower and Oswald, looking at samples from 27 European countries, have found a “strong hill-shaped pattern” in the use of antidepressants, peaking in people’s late 40s. Being middle-aged “nearly doubles” a person’s likelihood of using antidepressants. The same pattern appears, they’ve found, in the two U.S. states that collect the relevant data (New Hampshire and New Mexico).
Well that is … eerily… completely … 100% specifically … on the nose for me, age wise. It literally aligns perfectly.
That’s interesting. I hit my low in my 40s and I feel happier and much more contented now in my late 50s. I guess it’s a thing!
Now I’ve heard it 40 times. Fuckin’ life man, isn’t it amazing?
All that plus Far Cry 5. My soul weeps.
I believe nobody can provide a reason for being to another, so please don’t take this as any kind of patronizing way to show you the light. At the same time, I still care about you (as much as I could any other person represented by pixels on my screen, so in a weirdly-disassociated-yet-still-real way, lol).
As someone who’s obviously well-accomplished in your field, have you considered maybe shifting gears and going for something artistic/creative to express your dilemma? And no, I’m not talking about art therapy. Just creation. That might be an easier way to connect with people in your life, allowing them to gradually interpret instead of you laying the heavy burden on family members. If you happen to find something in the process along the way, all the better.
Pre-Kids vs. Post-Kids life are two entirely different things. I’ve kinda been saying that here on this board for over fifteen years now. Up until like three or four years ago, many were pre-kids. Now that a lot more are post, it’s kind of funny to me how much perspectives and replies have changed on a LOT of comments I make.
You’ll be fine, dude. Just keep on keeping on. It gets easier after awhile.
Yeah at this point I am just trying to figure out what makes me feel better. So far I have:
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music, I do 💘 me some sweet jamz
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mailing people I know small presents intended to encourage joy (cf. yoyos)
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sending people who need it, money… for example I sent axisandallies some money around xmas time to help out, and I did feel better that day. indiegogo and the like are also good but it needs to be someone I have some connection with
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squeezing and tickling and kissing my kids, this always feels super good no matter what else is going on. I dread the day my kids don’t want me to squeeze and tickle and kiss them any more, but they love it now
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understanding the context that this exact age (45-50) is the nadir of happiness for most people across cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds.
To some extent consuming media (books, movies etc) helps but I tend to naturally like and prefer dark / dramatic content, not silly ephemeral things, so it’s kind of a mixed bag in how it makes me feel.
Work, I am very good at, I have always been good at, but that’s something I have to do, I don’t feel like I have a choice in the matter so it doesn’t really make me feel better or worse, it’s just something I have to do for internal reasons or else… things get really bad. It’s kinda mandatory.
I struggle with this. I’m good at work and always want to be productive, but damn if I don’t have a wandering mind that always has 8000 creative projects queued in front of the task I’m supposed to be doing. Many years ago, I started to notice that if 3-4 months went by without me completing a creative project that I would get depressed and have to work through a lack of motivation until I was able to complete something. That has never abated. So, with two kids, a full time job, a fellowship, sitting on a board of trustees, my time is limited these days, but I still have the itch to create things and still struggle with depression when I can’t find the time to do it. Frankly, it kind of makes me resent all the time I spend at work, even though I have to do it for the income. I guess everybody has their weird little demons that haunt them.
I’d make a really good independently wealthy layabout, I feel no pressing need to be productive.
Ha ha. Yeah, I’d like the option. I’d tell myself every day to do something interesting and productive, and then waste the day flitting from this thing to the next.
I like sports. I could see myself playing a leisurely 9 or 18 holes of golf most days, walking instead of using a cart. Mix some tennis in, some swimming. Do some reading. Some gaming. I could be happy with that lifestyle.
I hear video games are fun
Sometimes video games are a way to feel like you’re making “progress” in some part of your life, when you feel like you can’t do it anywhere else. When I have particularly interesting projects to work on (new science / math to solve), I enjoy that as much or more than playing games, because I’m scratching that productivity itch either way.
Hell, lately i’ve been trying to clean my house when I’ve got that productivity itch instead of playing games, because while it’s infinitely less fun, it’s actually more satisfying when it’s done.
You know what? Forget everything I wrote above. Everything is shit and there’s no reason to care, which I’ve known since I was a kid and usually find funny, but today it’s not funny so I’m giving up and lying down and dying. None of you can have any of my shit, fuck off for asking. Remember me when you look at the night sky!
P.S. You’re all gay except the gay ones, who are straight.
Let’s put this in perspective. Roy Batty was an artificial human. An android, if you will. He was a bunch of protoplasm in the form of a human. He knew how to die because he was built to die in a certain number of years. He knew exactly when he would die, to the moment. He knew how to die, because he was programmed to die. Not only sometime, but an exact time.
He didn’t kill himself. He fought to live the best that he could against the people that wanted to end him before he was supposed to end.
So the question, Roy Batty knew how to die, so why don’t I is bullshit. He knew how to die because he knew exactly when he would die.
None of us are androids. We have an end date, but we don’t have an exact end moment. So the question is stupid. Why don’t you know how to die? Because you are human. Not an android. Not a created being with a known end point.
Why don’t you know how to die? Because none of us do. Not a single fucking one. And guess what? We all have existential fears. Every fucking one of us.
Okay?
I think as you get older you realize your life doesn’t belong to you any more. You’re part of this complex, inextractable web of relationships.
Or you realize you aren’t. Which is frankly more depressing.
All relationships are extricable if you put your mind to it!
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
I feel you, and sometimes I find myself crawling down those same dark tunnels – that no humans should reproduce, that none of this should have ever existed, and nothing has the intrinsic right to exist at all. There’s a limit to where one should let nihilism take oneself. It does not end well.