This thought: "Midlife Crisis and ERE..." came also to my mind this morning. Fortunately I found the thread by searching for it. The last post ist almost 2,5 years old. So I am asking:
- Do you have any new experiences?
- Do you or did you experience a midlife crisis? And if yes, how?
I am turning 35 this year and I am always interested in the experiences and lessons learned of wise and older persons.
Would be great if you could share your stories about "Midlife Crisis and ERE..."
Maybe it was my declining Andro? I was about thirty five when I watched a presenter draw a typical seventy years time line on a wipe board. When he put thirty five right in the middle and explained how the past was gone for good, he erased it, and it hit me like a load of bricks.
That was an awakening of major changes to my life. I didn't know then, nor do I know now what I wanted. But I was more certain of what I didn't want. And that is the one thing that I have in common with everyone on this forum.
Now 25, I found ERE a few months into 22. I had gone through many phases but I knew career wasn't how I wanted to spend my life. I'd naturally been a saver and knew I didn't want to be a business owner either due to having seen my parents have enough but stress constantly about their business. Investing was what I wanted but I had no idea how to nor enough capital.
Environmentalism and health tied in perfectly to ere and saving hardcore. At this point, I still love nature but can't say I want to homestead or live a Jacob level lifestyle but I strongly believe in the ere philosophy of web of goals-ie walking almost everywhere most days by living in a central location, saving/investing 50-90%, not wasting resources when doesn't benefit life, and those sorts of efficiencies.
Though I lean towards a MMM level of optimism and believe in the singularity, I came from a more pessimistic belief system that made me strongly desire a level of independence from needing to work. Love was always what felt best to me. So much more than working. Learning is my biggest independent passion. I see spending even 1 hour every single day on work I don't choose to be a hindrance to both of these. This knowing fueled my all in jump into ere for a few years.
First off, older people are not wiser. They are the future version of the idiots that are currently your age, which, let's face it, constitutes most fuckin people your own age, despite how fucking old you happen to be at this moment. And being that character traits become more pronounced as one gets older, old people are in fact, bigger idiot versions of the idiots you now know. Think upon that for a moment. I mean, speak to your average old person, they will bore you to fuckin tears and amaze you with their fuckin idiocy in no time. You just either don't want to admit it or you're afraid if you call them out on it they will stroke out and then you look like an insensitive douchebag for arguing an older person to their fuckin death. My father's sister was the biggest fuckin idiot this side of heaven. She lived her life as though the printing press was never invented and spoke as though she was the sole legitimate heir to the fuckin oral tradition. At 80+ years of age she took a left hand turn from the right hand lane while she was arguing with her bigger idiot husband and was killed by a redneck in his F150. When I heard the story, I said "DWI - driving while an idiot." And from that day forth, the world got a bit quieter and bit less idiotic.
I mean, generally, speaking our institutions are run by older people and look at the fuckin state of things.
I had to work with an octogenarian in my career. He was a fuckin co-dependent blow hard who drove 80 MPH, wheels straddled in two lanes due to cataracts but didn't want to get the surgery. And christ if he was not the most repetitive motherfucker I have ever met. And all he spoke about was himself. It was like listening to a commercial advertising a product you had no interest in. Montaigne wrote 600 years ago, "don't fear old men who can't remember their stories, fear old men who can remember their stories but not how many times they have fuckin told you." I might have paraphrased there a little.
I think if ERE teaches anything, its to be epistemologically self-conscious. Life is an independent study, where you parse out the authoritative texts and teachers to guide you. And yes, in some cases that might involve discourse with an older person. But not necessarily. I have no idea how old JLF or some of the other poster here are but I'm assuming they are younger than I am but spout fonts of wisdom not found in people twice their age. So I listen. So be it.
Do you feel or think that the U curve of happiness is real? It states that there is a bottom between 40 and 60 years.
For the average person - possibly. However, the average person that age is deep in debt, has massive mortgage payments, is stressed out about job (which they usually hate but need to show up in order not to lose their house of cards), kids (which they have no deep connection with as they spent most their time at work), partner (with whom close connection was lost some time ago and who often leads a separate life under the same roof) and all this while worrying about what colleagues, neighbours, family, and friends will say. No wonder they report increase happiness when the mortgage is paid off, kids have gone from home and retirement only a few years away. Do I have to add it doesn't need to be this way?
@Bankai: Good explanation. I get it. It is very real as you described many factors of it. How old are you? Do you know or do you guess? I dunno. I am turning 35, but I cannot imagine myself having a midlife crisis, because my state of mind is contentness, happiness, stoicism, web-of-goals, ere, realism, buddhism, awareness...Of course I will figure it out by myself eventually, but I don't (want) to believe it, because right now I think I can influence, control and manage some parts of my life. And if midlife eventually come I hope that I will be able to get through it by using the principles and tools... I have learned since then.
@MDFIRE2024: I'm your age. I don't expect any midlife crisis happening to me. I think the crisis is mainly a result of dissatisfaction with one's life, partially due to the reasons I mentioned above, partially due to the realization that one doesn't really live their own life, but rather lives to fulfill expectations of others. Now, if you live your life as you, and not anyone else, want, and are in control of it, why should you have a crisis? You designed it and not anyone else. Yes, you will make mistakes. It's not possible to always make good decisions, but then you only need to make few good decisions in your life and stick to them to live good and happy life. Besides, is it even possible for ERE folks to have a midlife crisis? How would it even look? "Damn, I fucked up big time, I should have bought this mcmansion and all these nice and shiny toys and just sit in front of the TV as everyone else was doing all along, instead of just constantly improving as a person and saving all this money... oh, wait..."
Odd that nobody mentioned that midlife crisis seems to tie to shortly after the kids leave home. Now there is this gap, where all that time and energy that used to be devoted to raising kids, has to be dealt with. This break leads to people suddenly having time/energy surplus. That surplus can be filled by questions about what it all about, and what do I want to do with my life now?
This is the crisis part of the midlife crisis. If other demands fill the gap, no crisis.
As we tend to be more intentional than conventional around here, I expect the midlife crisis rate to be much lower, and less intense.
