[Orwell20]

^^

Very true. The midlife crisis is essentially the realisation that life is no longer ahead of you, that you’re not moving towards something better. Or, to put it another way, it means giving up hope. That’s one of the main reasons people have children. They might be old and finished, but at least they can now live through their kids.

I am amazed much I’ve changed. My whole way of experiencing the world is different. All the vividness and intensity has gone. You really begin dying in your mid-30s, and that continues every decade until, by 85, you are so numb and detached that you’re virtually dead anyway. A happy 10-year-old and and a lonely 80-year-old (or even 40-year-old) experience the world so differently, it’s almost like comparing two separate species.

Right now, there are 18-year-olds in their first year at university. They’ve left home for the first time, made a new group of friends, lost their virginity, and are excitedly looking to the future. Everything is raw and intense. For me, as a lonely, mildly depressed 40-something, the world barely seems real. I find it impossible to take anything, or anyone, seriously. Me and that 18-year-old are living in different universes.

I guess two things make a big difference. First, whether or not you have kids. If you do, you can live through them, sharing in their highs and lows. Second, whether you lived a happy and fulfilling youth - sleeping with lots of people, having fun, living abroad, having adventures, achieving your dreams, etc. If you did all those things, you feel a sense of peace and satisfaction (I’ve been there and done that, now I can put my feet up and enjoy my memories). If you don’t have kids (I don’t) and your teens and twenties were nothing but shame, failure, humiliation and regret (which mine were), you’re ****ed. I’m sure someone will post the usual “it’s never too late” cliche. But in reality it IS too late. If I had died in my teens or twenties, people would have said “ah, that’s a shame, he had his whole life ahead of him.” Now, as an isolated, single, childless, mentally ill 40-something, they’d probably just think “well, maybe it’s for the best.”