More on middle age
Posted by Ron Coleman on January 17, 2008
Here’s an interesting set of thoughts on the topic of hitting your forties… or the middle of them. In light of this discussion, and many of the great insights that were offered in
the comments, I’ve been thinking more about this.
I found this link when searching for commentary on the concept elucidated in the Mishna that, at age 40, one begins to have deeper understanding. I absolutely experienced this in my own life. I didn’t necessarily say deep, but I did say deeper.
jan said
“Ayin be’emtzah?” I like that concept, but I don’t think that I’ve yet developed my own faculty of understanding, if anything, I’m more at sea than ever! (Of course, I’m only 43, once I’m 44 like some, I’ll certainly know it all!) I thought the mention of the forty day after conception was interesting, as that’s not long after a fetus reaches what you might call the “95% confidence level.” Very interesting.
Jack said
“I’m more at sea than ever!”
A lot of really good people never go to sea and so are never really very good at seeing what they missed.
Jack said
I’m gonna wax serious here for a moment.
I don’t know why, nobody here has really done anything to deserve that kinda treatment, and that Chabad article (chabad sounds kinda foreign to me and you all know what that probably means) got it all wrong about being empty in the middle. It has been my experience that quite a few people reaching forty are way too full in the middle. Way too full.
That being said however, I found the whole concept (I’m not saying which one) very interesting, though I’ve read it all before, and even heard it said a few times. When nobody was really listening.
40 is the new twenty, as people are wont to say nowadays, only on average you’re supposed to be twice as wise as you were then, but only four times as large. 4 times twice as wise divided by twice multiplied by four times as big as you can get can lead to an inflation of either the soul or the belly, whichever a fella or a gal feeds more often, and I guess a lot of that depends on where and on what one likes to dine. You are after all who you beat to the table, and what you do when you get there of course.
As for me, I guess I’m kinda bass-ackwards, being breech birth and all, but forty was a slam good age for me to inhabit, pass on through, and then make uphill towards something far better.
I’m stronger now than I’ve ever been (my endurance is not as great, that probably topped out sometime between 25 and 35), smarter (that’s debatable by audience obviously), wiser (ditto), more capable, have a wider range of skills and experience, can do more, am more productive (though less reproductive, and not from lack of trying), and am certainly more grateful. Every year I accomplish more than ever before, though that might have something to do with accumulation over time, meaning when I was six months old I still had not had the time to do very much, and now that I’m as old as I am I have far less time, but I’ve done a whole lot more in between now and then. By most standards.
Now strictly speaking my early and school years were the outright most fun and exciting years of my life (I had a blast, and I mean somewhere far more powerful than a truck convoy of exploding nitro-glycerin but just short of a nuclear holocaust), my twenties were extremely exploratory and I had my fill of danger and adventure (and I loved that too, but for different reasons), and my collegiate career wasn’t half bad either. My thirties were a shock though, mainly cause I never expected to live to see them. I was pretty sure I’d be whacked by then, and so when I did turn thirty it occurred to me that this breathing thing could go on a lot longer than I had expected and so I fished around and found me a wife and had me some kids. Two things I definitely never thought I’d live to see, or do.
But I’m glad now that I lived long enough to get a shot at em, and whereas I’m no sniper on the official books, I think I hit both square on and right between the eyes, even if it was kinda cold bore. After that my productivity went way up and me thirties went very well, and past that on up until now I can’t complain though I let myself drift outta shape (certainly out of my twenties’ shape) I certainly also accomplished a lot of things that would have been durn near impossible as a much younger man. Not that I was afraid of much when I was younger, I wasn’t, but Brave and Bold, and Wise and Clever, are two entirely different monkeys. One slings crap and screeches a lot, the other burns that kinda thing for fuel and laughs to watch the other monkeys squeal.
Now why do I say all that on the internet? Because I can, and because that’s what the internet is good for. Slinging crap and screeching.
It makes me laugh.
But to return to what I never got around to, it seems like to me, and maybe this is just the way I’m built, that my life has always run in a cycle of 7 years. Now maybe there is some kinda big, universal cycle of things (and I suspect there probably is) which impresses itself upon our own individual cycles in life, or maybe it’s the other way round, I’m open to calculation in either direction, but to me, 7 is the magic number. Now that being the case nothing can really come out even for me, but 7 still hits forty twice in a scenario like that and I reckon that’s not so bad all things considered. It could have turned out a lot worse, something much more like a Spice Girl’s song.
But if God has a way of setting time for everything, and for life in general, and a man’s soul has a way of setting time in regards to whatever’s around him at the time, and for himself as an individual, then what do you reckon…
I guess what I’m asking is… no, on second thought, just skip what I’m askin. It’s probably not important anyways.
Just say what you wanna say. That seems fair enough to me.
I had my shot, so now it’s your tern. (And if you like your tern, then I’ll bet ya like the tuna fish too.)
Anyways it was nice chatting with ya.
Now I gotta go do my P90X ab-ripper workout.
That mutha really, really, really hurts sometimes.
Especially at my age.
By the way, I really liked the pic Ron.
It kinda reminded me of the skull of a polar bear with the snout removed.
Ara Rubyan said
…there has to be an emptiness in the middle in order to move from one state of being to the next. A seed has to first dissolve in the soil before it can grow towards the light and bloom. In a human being, emptiness becomes spiritual openness when one lets go, when one nullifies one’s ego, when one’s own ego does not try to fill and control all the space around one, but makes space for the other. The emptiness is the necessary prelude to an entirely new and higher mode of existence.
I like it. I’m mildly surprised that the Chabadniks teach this, but upon further reflection it shouldn’t be a surprise. I’m also struck by how much it sounds like Buddhism. Not that there’s anything wrong with that of course. In fact, just the opposite.
Ara Rubyan said
Jack:
40 is the new twenty, as people are wont to say nowadays, only on average you’re supposed to be twice as wise as you were then, but only four times as large.
Large I accept. As if.
As for wisdom, maybe not so much, although you do gain more perspective. Which ain’t bad in the bargain.
Ron Coleman said
Jack, I’m going to have to curl up with your magnum opus — actually you’ve dropped a couple on me in the last week — over the weekend and see if I could possibly have anything to say!
Jack said
“actually you’ve dropped a couple on me in the last week”
Well, that’s new one on me Ron, but it’s the thought that counts I reckon.
Appreciate it and if we’re ever in the same neck of the woods, the beer is on me.
Otherwise if I can ever help, just shoot a bat-signal at the sky.
That usually gets my attention.
Mckiernan said
I hate to break the bad news to Susan Handelman but 40 is merely a number. Yes, a reason to celebrate and all, if its your birthday.
But, there’s no magic there. It isn’t the new twenty or the new anything except one twenty-four hour period of new forty.
But what the hell would I know, I’m over 70 and got wrote off years ago when the hippies announced one should never trust anyone over 30.
Times they are a changing.