The Midlife Crisis
Joshua Landy

04 December 2017

中年危机到底是什么?一种思考方式是，这是一种潜移默化的感觉，我们在生活中所做的事情是不值得的。The midlife crisis is Clarissa Dalloway wondering whether the life she has chosen is the life sheshouldhave chosen, and terrified that the answer may be “no.” Or worse: the midlife crisis can be the feeling thatnochoice of life could ever have been worthwhile. That nothing we could have done would have made that much of a difference in the world. That all choices of vocation are pointless, groundless, and arbitrary.

The problem with that way of understanding it, of course, is that this is really anexistentialcrisis, and an existential crisis is like a Big Mac: you can have one at any time. (It’s arguably just as healthy, too.)

Maybe we could at least say that midlife and the existential crisis go together: it’s a more natural time to start worrying about one’s career choices than, say, grade school. We start to “feel our age”; we suffer the loss of close kin; the prospect of our own death starts to seem less abstract. The fact that we will die, and all those we know will die—that’s what Camus meant when he talked about “the cruel mathematics that command our condition,” the mathematics that, in his view, render all effort unjustifiable.

But maybe we can go further than that. Kieran Setiya,this week’s guest, makes an intriguing additional suggestion. The midlife crisis, he says, is not just caused by the bad things that have happened—the body’s aches and pains, the losses we have suffered, the bad decisions we have made—but also by thegoodthings. We spend our twenties and thirties desperately scurrying to get that promotion, write that book, found that movement, create that app. If we fail, we are unhappy; if we succeed, we don’t feel nearly as satisfied as we thought we would.

所以对于那些经历过中年危机的人来说，也许生活告诉了我们一些关于欲望结构的事情。也许生活告诉我们，如果我们把所有的精力都集中在项目和目标上，我们是愚蠢的，相反，我们应该享受过程、旅程和道路。基兰说，也许我们也应该开始做一些没有目标的事情，比如散步或(请击鼓)哲学。

Is that right? I don’t know. I also like what C. P. Cavafy has to say in his beautiful poem “Ithaka.”

As you set out for Ithaka

hope your road is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery. …

Better if it lasts for years,

so you’re old by the time you reach the island,

wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

伊萨卡给了你奇妙的旅程。

没有她你就不会出发。

Yes, we’d better learn to enjoy the journey. But without a destination, there is no journey—there’s only aimless wandering about. “Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.” Maybe that’s the wisdom of midlife: keep your goals, and try to pick good ones, but enjoy them for the journeys they make possible.

Comments(5)

Swaz's picture

Swaz

Tuesday, December 5, 2017 -- 12:52 PM

The mid-life inflection point

The mid-life inflection point is the the time for a thorough self examination. If one looks to change the outside world, think sports car or face lift, then it becomes a crisis..

Harold G. Neuman's picture

Harold G. Neuman

Friday, March 6, 2020 -- 7:53 AM

On Sunday, February 23, 2020,

2020年2月23日，星期天，我在这里写了一篇我一直在纠结的文章，关于知识、观点和信仰。这件作品耗费了大量的时间和心血。昨天，我收到通知，一个潜在的出版商收到了我提交的电子邮件，正在考虑为它的“下一期”(或者可能是下一期……??)我已经写了15年了，朋友们亲切地称之为“深屎”。过了中年，我并不太担心这个问题。我希望成为一名出版的哲学家助手，但如果这没有发生，我可以说:好吧，我尽力了。我想拥有一辆好车，当然，整容?:未必。在另一个国家有一个更好的家?肯定的。足够的钱让我不用担心我的退休金会崩溃吗? You bet. There are things I would have liked to do, or do better. All-in-all, though, I am pretty content with this old skin. I will keep trying to do those things I love to do. For as long as I can do so. Fate is never assured---it depends upon contingency. Yeah, I said that, too.

robertcrosman@gmail.com's picture

robertcrosman@g...

Monday, March 9, 2020 -- 9:04 AM

The contemporary phenomenon

当我们为自己设定目标并实现它们时，我们中的一些人会有中年危机。“接下来会发生什么?”我们问，发现我们必须朝着一个新的方向出发。马塞尔·普鲁斯特在他的长篇小说中记录了他生命中的一个时刻，他早期的目标似乎不再有价值。他虚构的另一个自我马塞尔(Marcel)一直在上流社会追求成功，他曾把上流社会视为模拟永恒艺术世界的生活方式。他崇拜的贵族在外形上很像他们的祖先，他们被伟大的艺术家描绘和书写，他们的生活不需要谋生。因为在年轻的马塞尔看来，他们的生活受审美价值的支配，从某种意义上说，他们本身就是艺术作品。至少看起来是这样。但是，当他和他们更加亲近的时候，他们是浅薄的、卑鄙的、腐败的。同时，他把他生命中的那些伟大的人，比如他的母亲和祖母，抛在了身后——他们谦逊、真诚、善良。在这一点上，马塞尔感觉离死亡最近，因为他失去了生活的目标。但后来，他发现自己有能力描写他所熟悉的社会世界，这样他就把自己的经验世界变成了一个艺术世界，在那里，这些受时间限制的人成为他所了解的美德和邪恶的原型。 His life is redeemed through art, in the sense that out of his disappointing experience he has created a human world that is both alive and immune to the passage of time, a world that will endure as a permanent record of human life as lived in his own time and place..

我的猜想是，有许多卑微的人，他们一生都在工作，以支持他们的家庭，他们从来没有达到一个点，他们问:“这就是全部吗?”他们比那些雄心勃勃的人更好还是更差，那些人设定了崇高的目标，当他们实现目标时就会怀疑这一切是否值得?就我自己而言，我很久以前就开始追求“智慧”，通过教育来追求智慧。在大学里，我发现关于智慧的构成有各种各样的观点，我发现文学研究是最吸引人的途径，因为文学研究可以把知识和快乐结合起来。现在我知道了一些事情，但完全不知道的还有很多。我有一些在我看来是明智的观点——通常包括这样的陈述:“一方面……但在另一方面”——但这往往会遭到愉快的反驳，因为其他人得出了不同的结论。我确实觉得普鲁斯特倾听伟大艺术作品的方法令人愉快和安慰，但我最明智的结论是，不同的人有不同的智慧。我有足够的钱舒舒服服地过退休生活，但我不能对那些钱不够满足基本需求或不足以养活所爱之人的人宣扬金钱的漠视。不过，还有更多的人高估了个人财富。 They do so, I think, as a hedge against an exaggerated fear of becoming destitute. Or, like our President, they take wealth as the ultimate measure of self-worth. And too many admire the wealthy precisely for this reason. Others seek a kind of immortality in personal fame -" that last infirmity of noble mind" - but bolstered by the lessons of great literature, I am sure that those who do so are not wise.

Tim Smith's picture

Tim Smith

Sunday, March 8, 2020 -- 5:22 PM

I can't say how much I love

I can't say how much I love this poem.

Awesome blog and show. I listened to this in 2017 and now with Ken's passing each of these re-runs becomes all the more weighty.

我订了机票去参加肯的纪念活动，结果冠状病毒被取消了。当它成为现实时，我期待着让它成为现实。

Ithaka may have prompted the journey but I truly feel there is no you to give it to. It was ironic during the show that Keiran went halfway there when a caller invoked a Soul meme to answer Mid Life crisis (Ken had a deep breath.) I don't find the secular answers any less preachy without coming to terms with our lack of free will and a reframe of human agency. I could say more but ... it's a problem with few cross-bearers.

Thanks for this blog and show.

Karen Dunn's picture

Karen Dunn

Thursday, March 12, 2020 -- 10:52 PM

If you imagine the experience

If you imagine the experience of meaning is related to ego satisfaction you will inevitably be disappointed.

The experience of meaning is finding a true or unique connection between things, people, ideas or some combo of these. Often, closing a gap between what we need and getting it is associated with meaningful behavior because this is one of our earliest and most rewarding experience of meaning but this is rudimentary. There are so many ways to open your eyes, ears and mind to mysteries and otherness. Curiosity, not striving, is the root of the egos experience of meaning.

I enjoy William James and John Dewey;, The Meaning of Truth, The Moral Philosopher and Moral Life and Theory of Valuation.

Karen Dunn
Philosophy Major
Whitman College 1982

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