Tuesday, July 26, 2005
I turn 30 in August and it's kind of getting me down. I feel like I've been cheated out of at least 10 years of my life, propelled forward as if mounted on intangible rails. I've done a few things right, and things I'm proud of, but my overall perception is one of waste. On the cusp of my fourth decade, I feel automized, preoccupied with trivialities, burdened with fossil resentment and fear for the future. William Burroughs summed up similar anxieties with the term "stasis horror": the dark, underlying fear that nothing is changing, that the patterns of oneself and one's surroundings are thoroughly interlocked, like jammed clockwork.
22 comments:
I hit the big 3-0 in less than two weeks. I feel your pain all too well.
Mac, I'm 25. I used to think exactly the same way you are feeling now ... thing is, as soon as I realized other people were doing much worst than I was ... in a strange way, my misery started fading away.
Chin up, still have a lot to live!
Jon
Who cheated you?
Who is responsible for choices you have made, both over the years and daily?
Who would have to do the work to move you from the position you feel you are in?
What are some steps that you can take right now to begin to make changes you'd like to see in your self or your life?
I wouldn't sweat it. When I hit 30 I realized I was just getting started. Sorry John and Metachor, but it seems to me that 30 is the beginning of true wisdom. 20s are a time for pushing boundaries and learning about who you are. Not like this ever stops, but that is what youth is about. At 30 I really didn't feel any different. It's a phantom number, the changes and wisdom I felt didn't even hit me until 33 or so.
Timothy Leary, Terrence McKenna and Robert Wilson have shown us all that age doesn't really matter. There is always time to break out of whatever fiction you believe is holding you back. Shit dude, you published a book that is getting great reviews. What an accomplishment!
Blah, blah, blah...anyway everyone knows that 40 really the new 30, and orange is the black.
Relax, man...everything is going to be alright.
I feel cheated, too! I just turned 40 last month, and have yet to experience any of these angsty feelings about age. In fact, I'd been looking forward to 40 since every I know who is over 40 says that they didn't really start enjoying life (even if they thought they had before) until they turned 40!
Believe me Mac, 30 is a grand age.
When you reach 40, and again 50, as I have, you will realize that.
Don't wait till your 30's and 40's have passed to make use of a still very, very great time in your life. Take my word for it 30 is not dead.
I'm realizing, too, that 40 and 50 aren't so bad either.
I posted a comment here then I deleted it and expanded my thoughts at vortex egg. But I'll repeat this here, Mac:
Good luck and keep doing what you do. The world needs more people willing to put themselves and their ideas out there. The power to break free from the interlocked patterns of self and surroundings are in your hands.
Maybe I'll feel different when I'm older. Maybe not.
I'm not denying personal responsibility. Just feeling a little down. (I came *really* close to disabling comments on that post, but appreciate the encouraging words! Intellectually, I know 30 is just another damned number, but...)
For me when I hit 30, it really did seem like just another number, same with 40, but at 50 I did feel some of the things you speak of, maybe because at this point you actually begin to see some of the effects of getting older- now I am afraid of what 60 might bring...
There's a passage in the Odyssey where Odysseus descends to the portal of Hell and talks with the shade of the dead Achilles. A. tells Odysseus that he would rather be a living dog than a dead hero.
On the lighter side (and BTW) astrologically, this period is also your "Saturn return" (actually 28+, when Saturn returns to its position in your natal chart). This is a time of reassessment and, especially, of determining the basic course of your life for the next thirty years. It is during your Saturn Return that your life's true vocation supposedly opens up for you in a major way.
So I'll end with the words that Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote to Walt Whitman upon receiving a copy of the latter's great personal epic poem, Leaves of Grass: "I greet you at the start of a great career."
I turned thirty last January, Mac, and I've been going through the exact same thing that you have been. Thirty seems to be a critical age for some people. If memory serves me correct, the Buddha was thirty when he left his palace in search of enlightenment. Jesus was thirty when he began claiming to be the Messiah. Nietzsche's Zarathustra was thirty when he left humankind to go live in isolation. I think if we did our research we can add a number of other names to our list. Anyway I think we are at a crossroads -- the decisions we make now about who we are and what we value will determine the course of the rest of our lives. Your destiny lies before you; choose carefully.
"There's a passage in the Odyssey where Odysseus descends to the portal of Hell and talks with the shade of the dead Achilles. A. tells Odysseus that he would rather be a living dog than a dead hero."
Contrast that with the words of Shakespeare's Caesar:
"Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once."
Something to reflect over...
Ken
Desinity-schmesinty, you make it every minute of every day. You will always make choices that decide who you are. That's what living is.
Mac -
45 came on July 18, and it was a good day.
My eyesight is not as good as when I was 30, and my aches come in twos and threes instead of nones and ones, and my son is taller at 16 than I will ever be, but I really and truly feel like I'm still 25...goofy, full of anger for the world's crap, and full of optimism for an unsure future...a kid.
All in all, I plan to live to at least 150 (absolutely serious), so in that respect, I am still an adolescent...and hope to remain so for the foreseeable... :)
It IS all in your mind!!!
And these are definitely not the worst of times. Judging from the tenor of comments to this post, the future promises to be better than current events might portend.
And you have always been an "achiever", and now feel there's little left to achieve. But it's a matter of perspective. You still have mountains to climb...you just haven't stumbled into the next one quite yet.
A momentary condition, I assure you.
Best,
Kyle
UFOreflections.blogspot.com
Kyle:
You're 45??
Hahahahahaha!
Seriously, though (wait - I was serious)... I'm halfway through 38, and can only sau "wheee..."
Mac:
I wake up every day with a smile on my face, and go to bed the same way.
Numbers are just that - numbers! Nothing more, nothing less.
Paul
"Desinity-schmesinty, you make it every minute of every day. You will always make choices that decide who you are. That's what living is."
I think you would be surprised as to how little freedom we actually have in making our so-called choices...
"Once you start down that dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny."
-Yoda
Being ... several years younger than 30, I'm in no position to advise anyone on life-choices at that age. But hey, this is the internet; opinions are a dime a million here. So here's mine:
Life is mostly trough with the occasional spike, mostly sky with the occasional star - and rightly so! If space was all stars, there'd be no life (and no space for that matter :D ).
You've published one book (two if you count the short stories) and you've got one on the way (Postbiological etc.) If those aren't stars in your sky, I don't know what is.
Happy Birthday.
Hi,
I am past 50. The thing that gets me is how fast time goes. A lot of it revolves around how much less sex is available as you get older.
I am smarter than I was when I was young, but I am sad to say I have contracted CRAFT disease (Can't Remember a Fuckin Thing).
Stan
It ain't so bad gettin' older. I turn 52 today (happy birthday me LOL)
Life is what you let it be.
Let yours be wonderful.
Sending you cyber-smiles.
Fear you not! Life is beautiful!
The RU Sirius Show #7: Sarfatti’s Encounters
"Jack Sarfatti, the Master of All Space and Time, returns so fire up your DeLoreans and join us back to the future."
http://mondoglobo.net/?p=49
See also:
http://destinymatrix.blogspot.com/
Contrast that with the words of Shakespeare's Caesar:
Can't argue with the Bard.