Meditation for December 13th, 2016
The Midlife Crisis
The classic 80s Midlife Crisis was the balding mustachioed man getting a red sports car and leaving your mother for a much younger blonde bombshell who is into Jane Fonda workout outfits.
Those days are gone. Those were kids from the 60s suddenly realizing they were 40 and had become precisely what they fought against in their 20s: the Man. They went from rock and roll to looking out the window and admiring their lawns and bird feeders. There was this line that the youth of the Boomer generation crossed when they went from youth to adulthood.
Nowadays, we remain children until 50 and beyond. We hang on to our childlike lifestyle of asking as we can, and none of that has anything to do with fighting the Man. There isn’t a clear boundary between youthful interests and adulting. We are seeing 50-year-olds dressed like they did when they were 20. They are bumping explicit-filled rap in their minivans. They never felt like they had to give anything up, and if anything, adult life got in the way.
Fuck, a modern midlife crisis would be getting a haircut, selling real estate, and not inviting people to a rock show on Facebook every weekend. In fact, now that I’m scrolling through my Facebook feed, that is precisely what happened. I’m getting open house alerts instead of show invites. It’s now punk to be a landlord! (it isn’t)
The kids who are just hitting their teens now will freak out in their midlife. They are doing fewer drugs, fewer underage drinking, and fewer fucking than the previous two generations. Bad news has-beens, rock & roll is dead. Kids now want to be bored. They are choosing to be adults before they leave childhood. They aren’t smoking weed down at the rope swing anymore; they are lying in bed scrolling on their phones while their parents are blasting early oughts emo from the living room.
The midlife crisis of yesteryear is gone because by the time a person hits that now, they are going to be too old and have no savings to blow on dumb shit. While we are being paid four times what our parents made, we aren’t able to afford to save anything, so we are just having to enjoy what we can now. That’s why nobody wants to work, since the future is bleak and even more unaffordable. We can’t buy houses, so we buy avocado toast and sell the unaffordable houses while crying and listening to punk.
Why do you think comics, movies, TV shows, and music are all wrapping their arms around 80s and early 90s nostalgia? Because those kids never grew up. When the younger generations grow up, they will be nostalgic for the Generation X and Millennial nostalgia economy, and we will see watered-down remakes of the watered-down remakes we are ‘enjoying’ now. That’s if they decide to stop growing up.
Prayer
God,
When do we become adults?
The Bible says it takes 20 to become a man.
That seems so young,
But we have younger men than that who fight in wars.
Choose our president,
And be able to handle pornography,
And be sentenced to adult prison.
But have to wait one more year to be trusted with alcohol.
It is the same for women:
20,
But to buy a woman, it costs 10 shekels,
20 shekels for a man of 20.
Please instill in me the ability to:
Wake up early,
Be responsible,
Have ambition,
Want to work hard,
Unquestioningly trust institutions,
And stop having childish behavior.
Amen
Craft
Want to feel like you are becoming an adult? Let’s try some rites-of-adulthood rituals to help cross that path from Never Ever Land to reality and to being a productive member of society.
Bullet Ant Initiation
You are tied to a tree while several bullet ants are placed on you, and you must endure the painful and venomous bites for ten minutes without crying. You may have days of side effects, but welcome to adulthood!
Warrior (for the fellas)
You and a bunch of your friends get together, eat a bunch of meat, drink blood, and then circumcise each other. If you’ve already been circumcised, you will need to lose a little more. Then you live together in a dorm for 10 years before coming out and finding someone to marry.
Cow Tipping
Not like the practical joke you play on your friend who doesn’t know better, this is getting completely naked and jumping over a castrated bull four times – if you can. Once done, you are ready to pay taxes!
Vision Quest
You go out into the wilderness and fast for three nights. You can drink water, but you can’t have anything else. You are allowed only a small circle of land to move around in, but you will just be sitting there contemplating your life while starving. This is popular with youth treatment centers that think long hikes will get kids off drugs.
Money
Popular with things like Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, by just having all your friends and family come and give you money. This will help you catch up with being an adult. Nothing makes you feel like a little kid than being poor.
Goal
You’re an adult when you say you are, and if you don’t want to be, don’t say you are, and that is fine. Nothing means anything anyway.