<story><title>How Schopenhauer’s thought can illuminate a midlife crisis</title><url>https://aeon.co/ideas/how-schopenhauers-thought-can-illuminate-a-midlife-crisis</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>aphextron</author><text>&amp;gt;It is no accident that the young and the old are generally more satisfied with life than those in middle age.&lt;p&gt;I was sitting in my car looking at a stop sign the other day, and all of the sudden it started shaking uncontrollably. Immediately I knew it must be a child shaking it, as there was simply no other possibility. No other person would just stand there and shake a street sign for no purpose beyond its&amp;#x27; own sake. There is no benefit, no reward, no ultimate reasoning beyond &amp;#x27;I want to shake this street sign&amp;quot;. As I looked down, I was right, and the kid was grinning like crazy.&lt;p&gt;We lose the ability to think like that as adults. It&amp;#x27;s not even that we &lt;i&gt;have&lt;/i&gt; the thought and then consciously decide against it; we&amp;#x27;re incapable of even conceiving it. To just &amp;#x27;play&amp;#x27; in life. And I think it&amp;#x27;s the most important aspect of our humanity. It is the very genesis of all our innovative and creative ideas, yet we treat it as something to be expelled in the process of &amp;quot;growing up&amp;quot;.</text></comment>
<story><title>How Schopenhauer’s thought can illuminate a midlife crisis</title><url>https://aeon.co/ideas/how-schopenhauers-thought-can-illuminate-a-midlife-crisis</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>o2348diuu</author><text>This piece hits close to home, as it&amp;#x27;s really clear to me I am going through a midlife crisis and have interesting parallels and contrasts with the author in terms of my career and next steps.&lt;p&gt;What seems to me to be the heart of this piece is the telic-atelic distinction, which seems useful and deserving of more attention. There&amp;#x27;s some parallels, it seems, between the telic-atelic distinction on the one hand, and the distinction between more stereotypical &amp;quot;western&amp;quot; goal-oriented notions of success or happiness, and recent foci of mindfulness and other things having a kind of Buddhist bent. To me the telic-atelic distinction seems useful if for no other reason than to provide an additional historical and philosophical context to something gaining in the public consciousness. The atelic ideal seems similar to the mindfulness goals, but framed differently, in terms of types of rewards.&lt;p&gt;For me, although useful, I&amp;#x27;m not sure this explains all of the midlife crisis. Maybe a big chunk, but for me personally at least I&amp;#x27;d say more of it is about feeling like I took a wrong turn with certain choices, and feeling like there&amp;#x27;s no way to get out of it due to the limits of lifespan and sociocultural failings (e.g., stereotypes about age, gender, and profession, and ability to change, etc.). For me it&amp;#x27;s been less about asking &amp;quot;is this all there is?&amp;quot; and more like feeling like I&amp;#x27;ve come to the conclusion that my vocation is a fraud, or that I&amp;#x27;m not a good fit, and that humans in general are far more flawed and darker than I realized. There were similar feelings about other things in my early adulthood, but I always felt I could change my life, improve things, and move to something else; the difference is now, I feel like the change is more substantial due to the costs and investments involved, and I feel like societal stereotypes and failings make it harder. There&amp;#x27;s also the limitations of lifespan which are very real and make things difficult.&lt;p&gt;I feel profoundly disappointed in life and people, in the sense of being wronged, not in the sense of being bored. I don&amp;#x27;t want to feel this way, but am not sure how to get out of it.</text></comment>