Midlife
Dazed and Confused: Matthew McConaughey’s character just won’t leave High School
According to some historians, “teenagers” were not much noticed until the 20th Century, being until that time merely young adults. It was probably the advent of universal education that led to greater awareness of adolescence and the importance of these years in the formation of character. There’s no doubt that adolescence is one of the great transitions of life. The perennial fascination of American culture with the High School Movie – a film genre now as significant as Westerns were a generation ago – is a testament to the place it now occupies in our consciousness.
By comparison, the transition of midlife is given far less importance. Nobody wants to be middle aged, and the stereotypical “midlife crisis” involves hooking up with a toyboy or secretary, buying a motorbike and generally making every effort to appear decades younger. We’re all familiar with the phenomenon of MAMILs (Middle Aged Men In Lycra) pounding along country roads on expensive racing bikes of a Sunday. In some ways, of course, it’s great that people are living longer and attempting to stay fit. But in our obsession with youth, we don’t give much attention to the importance of midlife as a transition – a time of great potential, doubt, fear and, for some, growth.
That word growth – our culture is obsessed with it. When our economy isn’t growing, we start to panic. When our bodies start to decline, we also panic. But the upwards growth of youth is not the only way. Growth can also be downwards – putting down roots, sinking deeper into the earth, finding new sources of water and energy in the darkness below.
As we enter young adulthood, most of us decide who and what we are – we form a sense of who we are, an “I”, an ego. This includes choosing a career path, finding a partner, raising children, deciding on our beliefs and values. Twenty years later, however, many people find themselves questioning those choices, maybe for the first time. Do I really love this man? Do I care about this job? Do I believe in this God? Does all my striving, in the end, amount to anything? What’s the point? At midlife, many glimpse death as a real possibility for the first time, and the ego is scared about that prospect.
In Jung’s psychology, “shadow” describes everything that is excluded from the daylight idea of the self. Whatever it is that I don’t want to see about myself is in shadow. At midlife, shadow starts to make itself known. In the Shakespeare play Macbeth, the wicked deeds of the central character and his wife begin to unravel with a knocking at the door of the castle. Shadow is knocking at the door, demanding to be let in.
Paradoxically, what feels like death to the ego, is actually a great blessing in disguise. It’s a huge effort to keep parts of oneself in shadow. Accepting certain truths about oneself feels terrible, but in the end it can be an immense relief. Those that have passed through midlife successfully say things like, “I’m so glad I don’t have to pretend any more”; “I used to believe I had to be perfect. I was so hard on myself”; “I wasn’t myself before”. The energy released by this is immense, allowing middle and old age to be a blossoming rather than a sad decline.
One metaphor for the experience of midlife is that of the caterpillar entering the chrysalis. Its whole body turns to liquid inside the cocoon, and for a while it waits in utter darkness, neither one thing nor the other. The old ego falls apart, and a new one forms – one that will carry us through the next stage of life.
There could hardly be a more important moment to take stock, to consider one’s life.
