I recently read a post about needing a "strenuous age" to start again. I highly recommend reading it if for no other reason than to see the parallels between the turn of the 20th century and now. It's scary how similar things seem and a bit worrisome what those parallels will lead to. Nevertheless, this article came at an interesting time for me. Having reflected a bit on what I've done in the past 43 years, I can attest to the fact that the next 40 plus years of my life won't be driven by meditation, drug use, and journaling. Yet, if you look around, you will see that this seems to be a trend.
Alone in my lifetime, we have come quite far with technology. I grew up in the days when rotary dial phones were still around. We weren't always on and connected in my childhood. I could be described as having been "free range" as a kid. My mom joked to me recently that I was running around with other kids my age alone in the woods at age 7. She'd be arrested for that nowadays. We had a cabin in Upstate New York and not only were we unparented most of the time, but we also had access to guns and there were abandoned hotels we considered playgrounds. Yes, one of the kids there ended up shooting a hole in his foot. He learned his lesson about guns. Without it sounding too idealistic, it was a childhood I look back at as healthy.
Fast forward 30 or so years. Remember all the noise in the media in the 90's about supermodels (then basically women...think Kate Moss) being too thin? There was an uproar about the media projecting an unattainable image and women were getting screwed. Now think about where we've come to. No longer is it about being thin for just women. Now it's about being perfect, everyone and everywhere. We are being assaulted by images of perfect lives: thin yet muscular...happily married....wealthy....happy and thriving children....careers one wants and likes....leisure time. Social media and technology are projecting Photoshopped lives on to all of us.
I shudder when I see things like Burning Man. I can imagine it being an artsy, alternative world 20 years ago. Now it's just so commercialized and attended by people thinking they are tuned in to the times. Yet, if you look at Silicon Valley and beyond, you will realize that people are living in a neverending Burning Man like existence. The popular bloggers, VC's, tech leaders and podcasters I've mentioned on here before have all come from doing some Crossfit and eating "clean" to full-on monk-like lives filled with meditation, micro-dosing of LSD, smoking weed plus constant journaling as well as lists of gratitude. Forget not that this is a lifestyle usually afforded only those who have earned enough to support it.
Reality and life remain far-less exciting. At least my life does when compared to these curated lifestyle projections. Yet, I refuse to believe that I need to life hack myself to a better place. I could, on one hand, be super unhappy about where I have come to at this mid-point in my life. But for what? I like my life with all of its warts and scars. I work out regularly but I enjoy a glass of wine and a good martini here and there. I try to eat healthy most of the time but carbs are just fun. I work too much sometimes but I compensate by making time for my family. I work on being a "better man" but who are we kidding? At 43 I ain't changing all that much anymore. But this too is perfectly fine. I don't need to meditate or use drugs to detach from a life I am unsatisfied with. I don't need to write gratitude lists every morning because I can be thankful for what I have without writing to myself about it each morning. Maybe I've just continued living a "strenuous enough" life post-free-range parenting to not feel like there needs to be "more" there.