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I wonder if the mid life crisis is a completely modern and secular malady. Thinking to my religious friends who have 5+ kids, a rich spiritual life and deep en

I wonder if the mid life crisis is a completely modern and secular malady. Thinking to my religious friends who have 5+ kids, a rich spiritual life and deep engagement with community, it's very hard to imagine them going through one. Because they are too busy, but mainly because their life is oriented from the get-go around what is very meaningful to them

TeMPOraL 3y ago
Having grown up in a highly religious community: > a rich spiritual life and deep engagement with community I kind of suspect this is one of the ways mid-life crisis manifests. That, and covert alcoholism.
majormajor 3y ago
> Thinking to my religious friends who have 5+ kids, a rich spiritual life and deep engagement with community, it's very hard to imagine them going through one. I grew up in a church and will tell you right off the bat that neither church nor family prevents one. Googling will give you no shortage of Christian articles and resources around dealing with them. Nobody is immune to that sense of "everything looks peachy on the outside, internally there's a lot of frustration" with the status quo. It does give you a big blast radius so your midlife crisis can wreck a family or two, though, if it leads you towards certain things.
- kajecounterhack 3y ago
  Also, 5+ kids may seem helpful, but not because you won't face existential crisis with five kids -- you just will have more trouble finding time to process. Kids keep you very busy, until they don't. As an ex-church person: the "community" is pretty hurtful to a lot of people and isn't immune to high school clique / cult of personality type things, even if you discount other obvious harms (the experience of gay kids in church, women being told they can't teach, way-too-frequent abuses of adolescents by church authorities like youth pastors and priests). Christian stuff in particular is also heavy on the shame and that is pretty bad for psychological safety & wellness. My mother in law was a divorcee and made to feel real bad about that even to this day. As a boy I remember growing up and self-flagellating for every "impure" thought that crossed my mind. "Rich spiritual life" is a pretty branding phrase for bankrupt ideology.
  - sclarisse 3y ago
    Christianity is heavy on the guilt. If you’re self-flagellating, that’s a sign it’s guilt, not shame. East Asian cultures are more about the shame. And try not to go anywhere where the social order is based on Fear.
    - kajecounterhack 3y ago
      I'm East Asian. Guilt and shame here are the same thing -- the distinction between moral vs non-moral is blurry at best. The only difference is who you're disappointing and what the perceived consequence is.
  - watwut 3y ago
    > Kids keep you very busy, until they don't. Honestly, seeing some catholic families with 5+ kids, the model where one partner simply spends all time in work and hobbies while leaving all childcare to the other one is super common too.
    - throw9away6 3y ago
      Doesn’t really seem fair for the wife, I don’t really understand why she puts up with it
  - nickd2001 3y ago
    Its sad that you had such a negative experience of church, due to people's failings. Its not like that everywhere. There are church communities that are welcoming to people that are divorced, gay, etc. Sounds like you've been among people who lack of proper understanding of "love others as yourself" and "judge not lest thy be judged" which are fundamental to true Christianity (and other religions too). I'd advocate, don't give up, don't dismiss religion based on people's failings, but instead, challenge people
    - kajecounterhack 3y ago
      Another way to look at it is that this isn't "people's failings." This is structural. Churches perpetuate problematic power structures and base their teachings on incoherent writings that can easily be interpreted to mean all kinds of nasty things. You can point to Jesus sayings in "true Christianity" and still have to explain yourself as to why Apostle Paul is allowed to say some crazy stuff in the same compilation text (the bible) that everyone loves to harp on. Also, didn't Jesus compare a gentile woman to a dog? Wowza that's some offensive and racist stuff. > There are church communities that are welcoming to people that are divorced, gay, etc There are plenty of church communities that _claim_ to be welcoming to such folks. You don't have to stick around long to see that it's not true. And it's also not hard to see why - the underlying foundations of the Christian church especially are rotten. Churches don't have full control of their congregants so churches will never be safe spaces as long as they teach from texts that are racist, sexist, and encourage illogical thinking. I _did_ church shop for a year in hip San Francisco of all places, before coming to this (obvious in hindsight) realization. TBT that time I walked into a church and the first thing they said was "Women were created to be mens' helper" - a panel with Francis Chan. Walked out pretty fast after that. > I'd advocate, don't give up, don't dismiss religion based on people's failings, but instead, challenge people What does that mean -- challenge people? You're encouraging folks like me to put up with endless bullshit and look for something that doesn't exist. No thanks.
- sky_rw 3y ago
  Going to church regularly does not mean you have a rich spiritual life.
- grassmannian 3y ago
  Interestingly, it seems like some women's monastic communities (ostensibly the pinnacle of rich spiritual life and engagement with community) are much less likely to experience midlife crises, see https://www.jstor.org/stable/43682330 https://www.jstor.org/stable/43682330 Figures 1 and 2.
  - sph 3y ago
    I reckon nuns don't deal with a lot of Zoom job interviews after being laid off, pointy-haired bosses, relationship troubles, making ends meet, and paying rent. That helps a little.
- Lamad123 3y ago
  Yes, you can almost say that St. Augustine and Luther and others were having some sort of quarter/mid-life crises.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
UncleOxidant 3y ago
When those 5+ kids move out of the house, that's when those guys tend to have their midlife crisis.
- xyzelement 3y ago
  I think it's again a modern secular assumption that your kids move out and there's some sort of deep emptiness. The traditional expectation is that your kids move out to be married and bless you with grandchildren, not to abandon you to rot.
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    I don't see how the kids "blessing" their parents with grandchildren matters much. My parents had a hard time adapting after I, as the youngest, also moved out and finally started being able to support myself, even though they had grandchildren from my eldest sibling to think about. In the end, for them the point still stands that their own kids are adults now, and while grandchildren are fun to take care of, they aren't typically the same amount of responsibility on grandparents as on parents. It still leads to suddenly having time to think about their own life, as well as the freedom to take risks, creating the same room for a crisis.
    - badpun 3y ago
      > My parents had a hard time adapting after I, as the youngest, also moved out and finally started being able to support myself, even though they had grandchildren from my eldest sibling to think about. "Thinking about" probably won't do them much good. Seeing them on a regular basis, on the other hand, has great effects on many grandparents. Obviously, this requires that children don't move far away from parents, but many family-oriented parents stay close.
      - dotnet00 3y ago
        I don't literally mean that they only have to think about them.
version_five 3y ago
I thought the circumstances you describe are what leads to the typical midlife crisis. Not always, but people wake up and realize they're trapped in a life (kids, obligations, job) that sort of crept up on them, and feel like they need to let off some steam. A lot of (perhaps including the article's authors) modern "mid-life crises" are more what I've heard of as "quarter life crises" - you finish school, get a job, you're in a rut where you don't have an obvious next step and you're starting at possible decades of the same, you get depressed. But now a lot of people are like 35 at that time so it almost overlaps with the 80's version of a midlife crisis. This happened to me, I accomplished roughly what I'd planned professionally at about 30 and then realized it wasn't what I wanted and had no idea what to do next.
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  There is this book https://www.amazon.com/Passages-Predictable-Crises-Adult-Life/dp/0553271067 https://www.amazon.com/Passages-Predictable-Crises-Adult-Lif... which factually points out that most people go through several crises in their adult life. As a rule of thumb you have one every seven years or so. I had one around 30, another in my early 40s, and another at 49. If you read between the lines in Freud you could also get the picture that a psychoanalysis would be likely to span the duration of such a crisis (say 18 months) and improve the outcome you get. The author, Gail Sheehy, gave a talk at Ithaca College about a decade ago and actually said that she disowned that book for a few reasons: (1) Passages is positive for divorce as a way that people who are evolving at different rates and in different directions to realize themselves. She realized later on that divorce is overall highly destructive. (2) The paths that people take aren't quite so predictable. (3) Passages was based on a study of graduates of an elite school, one thing that stands out is that none of the case studies consider serious deprivation, in fact you never once hear that somebody wanted to do X or Y but didn't because they couldn't afford it. In the sense that the experience of most people is "dark matter" you might want to read https://www.amazon.com/Silences-Tillie-Olsen/dp/1558614400 https://www.amazon.com/Silences-Tillie-Olsen/dp/1558614400 In particular divorce might work out well for somebody like Bill Gates or Elon Musk who can trade in their tired old nag for a hot young thing but for most ordinary people and their families it's profoundly harmful. Sheehy went on to write numerous more books on the same subject.
Loocid 3y ago
Isn't the stereotypical midlife crisis the Dad whose kids have all moved out? I don't think that has anything to do with modernity or secularity, it's more to do with a large change that triggers a revaluation of your life. That could happen to anyone.
- fullshark 3y ago
  I view the stereotypical midlife crisis as the dad/husband who decides to buy a sports car and act 25 again possibly cheat on his wife.
  - Loocid 3y ago
    That's the stereotypical midlife crisis "what" for sure. I was more talking about the "who". My point was I don't think it's limited to the secular modern person.
- xyzelement 3y ago
  // the Dad whose kids have all moved out I think that too is a modern and secular thing. If you got 5 kids there's a good chance the older one has made you a grandfather while the younger ones are still at home. So you sort of transition from meaning to meaning
maximinus_thrax 3y ago
> Thinking to my religious friends who have 5+ kids, a rich spiritual life and deep engagement with community, it's very hard to imagine them going through one. As someone who grew up in a religious family/community, this comment made me burst out laughing.
- api 3y ago
  When modern people feel unhappy they often fantasize about an idealized traditional or primitive life imagining that would be better. People in those lives often do the opposite, imagining being unencumbered or living some kind of cosmopolitan life. It’s pretty normal to imagine “elsewhere” when you are unhappy. “Elsewhere” is by definition not where you are. As far as I can tell angst is normal for human beings and everyone in every lifestyle feels it.
Barrin92 3y ago
>it's very hard to imagine them going through one because they've outsourced most critical decisions to their faith. As Jung said, people don't have ideas, ideas have people. It's very easy to obtain meaning by getting in a sense hijacked by a very convincing set of beliefs.
- theduder99 3y ago
  sounds like Jung's idea has you.
  - kgwxd 3y ago
    Or you could just look out the window and see Jung simply made an objective observation. Facts don't need an authoritative voice to make them any truer.
    - operatingthetan 3y ago
      I think you're sidestepping an important nuance of what Jung was saying.
- xyzelement 3y ago
  I agree with the "ideas have people" framing. If you are choosing a set of ideas to "he had by" - ones that let you navigate life (eg bypassing the midlife crisis) sound good.
- mistermann 3y ago
  It's also very easy to fall for the sensation that not being religious grants one omniscient knowledge of those who are. Somewhat ironically, some religions are some of the best ways to learn about this and other important phenomena that seem unknown to secularists (in ways that are important, and doing some reading ain't guaranteed to make the cut). Everyone is doing their best, but each of us have our own blind spots. Best to work as a team so we can cover each other's shortcomings.
grecy 3y ago
> I wonder if the mid life crisis is a completely modern and secular malady The hint is in the name - crisis. I genuinely think it's a point people reach where they realize (or finally admit to themselves) that what they've been doing with their lives up until this point is deeply unsatisfying, so they make drastic changes. Our "modern" western life is not fulfilling, healthy or enjoyable.
- VoodooJuJu 3y ago
  >Our "modern" western life is not fulfilling, healthy or enjoyable. Who is "our"? Western countries, especially Anglo countries, are comprised of a thousand thousand different cultures. Which among those are unfulfilling, unenjoyable, unhealthy? I'm sure some are nice. We're not all the same, not remotely.
  - grecy 3y ago
    > Which among those are unfulfilling, unenjoyable, unhealthy? I was thinking of the one where we go to jobs for 40+ hours a week that are not fulfilling, we don't get to spend much time with our families, we don't get time to sleep and exercise enough... and we have to do it for essentially our entire lives in the hopes we'll get a few years to be put out to pasture
    - taneq 3y ago
      Sure is pretty unfulfilling to be not independently wealthy
      - grecy 3y ago
        There are many other ways to go about it, wealth is not needed to live a fulfilling life. I have found it extremely fulfilling to work for my own needs - building houses, hunting my own food, growing my own vegetables. Doing so takes 20-30 hours per week, and the rest of the time I get to spend with my friends and family. Obviously it's not for everyone, but I'm saying that people get into a mid life "crisis" because they realize what they've been doing isn't making them happy deep down.
VoodooJuJu 3y ago
[flagged]
- FeteCommuniste 3y ago
  What a load of crap. Many of us haven’t been to church in decades yet still are in loving marriages with kids, not frowning and “all alone.” If there’s resentment it’s in part an effect of this stupid insistence that only religious “solutions” can lead to happiness.
  - dang 3y ago
    Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
verbify 3y ago
I grew up as an ultra orthodox Jew - where people have 5+ kids and there is a lot of focus on religious life and community. There are plenty of extremely bitter people who might love their kids but feel trapped by the lifestyle (they don't want to leave their kids, spouse but it gives them no space for anything else). And many of them struggle with meaning in life - the community, religion and kids don't solve that.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- lanstin 3y ago
  Different religion, but my ex-wife's family were all baptists and I've never met women as angry at men as the older women in that family. They had obeyed and submitted and got angrier and angrier as the decades wore on. Didn't help that, despite the strict religion, there was a good bit of alcoholism amongst the men. They did have very good food at the family reunions, and a big family, but that's about the limit of positive characteristics I can enumerate. (Not that everyone was bad, a few cousins managed to join the modern world of loving-kindness and science).
- xyzelement 3y ago
  I am somewhat familiar with Orthodox Jews, though probably a different area than what you grew up with. I think what's been lost in places is that living an outwardly religious life is one thing[0], while being deeply religious inwardly is the next level. The second thing is harder to teach or even talk about so it gets ignored, vs ritual etc. It's maybe the same as the difference between "dragging yourself to the gym"[0] and "loving fitness." //And many of them struggle with meaning in life - the community, religion and kids don't solve that. This seems like the crux of the difference between deep and superficial engagement with religion. In my experience, a deeply religious person (of any religion) sees a profound amount of connectivity and meaning in everything in the universe, and sees their family and community life in the context of contributing to that meaning. The statement you made is analogous to me to "working out doesn't make you fitter" - it puts a big question mark around the exercise you're doing. [0] While obviously connecting deeply is the goal, there's a lot of benefit to even the less deep engagement. Your friends whom you describe as bitter - you can imagine that the secular society is full of bitterness too, plus no community or kids. Likewise, even if you "drag yourself to the gym" you're way ahead of those who don't, even though you may hate it.
ryandrake 3y ago
Nearing-50, non-religious person checking in here: I don't think it has much to do with religion or non-religion. I must be really lucky or really privileged because I haven't had even a hint of "crisis" that I can remember. Knock on wood that I don't catch it somewhere. Isn't the common denominator of a midlife crisis a yearning for the past? Overwhelming nostalgia? Dad buying a sports car so he can pretend to be 20 and virile again? Mom downing the mimosas at 10AM wishing she didn't make so many mistakes in the past? Uncle Joe can't stop talking about how he was High School senior football captain and had the time of his life in the '70s and that everything sucks now? Me, on the other hand? I'd never want to go back to my 30s or 20s and especially my teenage years. High School was literally the worst part of my life, I'm talking rock bottom, and my 20s were not much better. But every year thereafter has been better than the previous one. I'm totally optimistic about the future! And while I might not be making more money year after year, I always feel like I have a purpose to achieve, and as my kid grows up, there always seems like there are future moments to look forward to. None of this requires religion.
- anthonygd 3y ago
  > Isn't the common denominator of a midlife crisis a yearning for the past? Overwhelming nostalgia? I don't think so. I'd describe a midlife crisis as more of a fear you don't have enough time to do what's next. I've always wanted a Ferrari; if I don't get it now, when will I? I discovered bouldering in my 40's and hate the fact that I can never be competitive; if only I had started 20 years earlier... at this point, every year limits how much time I have left for those new adventures I haven't discovered yet. I think Uncle Joe just complains because he's crabby.
  - Schnitz 3y ago
    Exactly this. You realize that your choices actually matter in the big picture. You have only so many years to work with, it becomes clear that some of the things in the “later” bucket will have to move to the “never” bucket. That makes you question things much more. Should I really go to the pub for the umpteenth time with my mates and lose my Sunday to a hangover? Oh I’d rather do something else and get a full Sunday! That’s only one example, but it is also a good one. You can try to make the most of your loss of invincibility and infinity and utilize that feeling to make better choices than in the past. No point dwelling on if those 10000 hours playing video games were well spent.
kgwxd 3y ago
[flagged]
- xyzelement 3y ago
  That doesn't sound like a person with actual religion.
  - mistermann 3y ago
    I like the way Kierkegaard inverted the scenario: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM24cLo8M/ https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM24cLo8M/ To me, this is better for a causality oriented approach to things, versus the "cultural common sense, everyone knows" intuitive approach that seems to be recommended.
sanderjd 3y ago
For what it's worth, I don't think this is right. The "well, how did I get here?" problem can happen to anybody. Maybe it's not happening to your friends, but certainly there are many people like them who wake up some days wondering why they are struggling to find enough purpose and meaning in all those beautiful things they've built their lives around, and battling to envision their path back to contentment.
boringg 3y ago
The U Curve probably correlates with midlife crises being that being at the low of the U curve with some other push triggers a crises. But yeah religiosity does correlate positively with happiness (no surprise there - you offload existential worries for religious dogma) https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.837638/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.8376...
Lamad123 3y ago
It's not!! We were told as kids that prophets in general became prophets at that age around 40!! It's the case for Mohammed at least and if your read up on his life around that age, you can easily imagine he was going through a mid-life crisis!!
- za3faran 3y ago
  One can imagine anything, including unrealistic and baseless things. Reality, however, is different. This is evident by the many people who carefully studied his biography and ended up embracing Islam (some of them being heavily anti-Islam themselves before that).
  - Lamad123 3y ago
    A mid-life crisis is not necessarily a bad thing!! It's probably one of the most important spiritual experiences a person can have. We are told that Mohammed used to spend long times in the Hiraa cave kinda meditating or thinking about things that are not part of ordinary life.. Somebody with midlife crisis is one who has questions and searching for answers! They are asking: "Who am I? What am I doing in this world!?"
    - za3faran 3y ago
      Contemplating in God's creations is not a midlife crisis, but a spiritual endeavor.
j0hnyl 3y ago
Secular people seem way more emotionally stable to me than those I would call religious.
dang 3y ago
No doubt it takes different forms now than in the 14th century, but Dante began his Inferno with a mid-life crisis: Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a dark forest For the straightforward path had been lost.
- ddq 3y ago
  Hell, the book of Ecclesiastes could be read as a midlife crisis. “Vanity of vanity, all is vanity.”
- pbourke 3y ago
  A man wakes up in a strange room He doesn't recognize the woman next to him He gets out of bed, there's a wallet on the dresser He opens it up, looks inside at the driver's license in there with his face on it And someone else's name
weregiraffe 3y ago
[flagged]
- dang 3y ago
  Please don't cross into religious flamewar. That's the last thing we want in HN threads, and we're trying to avoid flamewar, putdowns, and name-calling in general. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking that intention to heart, we'd be grateful. Fortunately most other commenters sharing your point of view in this thread have been making their substantive points thoughtfully, so there are plenty of good examples nearby. Edit: unfortunately your account has been posting a lot of unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments - e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36391350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36391350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36336547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36336547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35872437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35872437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34726946 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34726946 Can you please not do that? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
za3faran 3y ago
Yes I wouldn't be surprised at all. It's easy to see how much lower suicide rates are for example in so called "third world" countries that have been war torn, due to no small part by Western colonialism, compared to "advanced first world" countries, which are generally highly secular and have higher standards of living. Believing in God plays a major role in maintaining mental sanity, particularly in the faces of challenges. Personally speaking, Islam has helped me and many others I have either personally observed or heard about navigate far from ideal circumstances. I've known people who have lost spouses, children, or even entire close families, yet they remain steadfast and strong.
- ihateolives 3y ago
  > It's easy to see how much lower suicide rates are for example in so called "third world" countries How good/trustworthy is the data on suicides in those countries? Highly religious countries are not keen on showing and sharing unfavourable data.
  - za3faran 3y ago
    That last claim needs backing up. Sources are World Health Organization (Suicide Rates 2019) and World Health Statistics (World Health Organization)
kortilla 3y ago
Lol no, I saw religious cousins’ families go through major shakeups during midlife crises. One ended with divorce after a nice string of affairs and a departure from the church. Another was quitting a stable white collar job, buying a motorcycle, and spending nearly every night at a bar. A community does not prevent them. A spiritual life definitely doesn’t prevent them (disillusionment is frequently a cause). Kids don’t help, but they certainly put immense pressure on you to not upend everything so it gives the appearance that it might not be happening to outsiders.
nickd2001 3y ago
100% . People who prioritise helping others, as long as they don't overdo it and burn out, are far less prone to depression. Having a bad day? Feeling depressed, frustrated with your life? Go do something to put a smile on someone else's face. That can really snap you out of it. Of course, we (and I'd have to include myself) all forget to do this as often as we should. I agree that its a secular malady. Its almost as though Jesus was exactly right and knew what was good for us ( * caveat - this is based on an assumption that Jesus actually existed / what he said was correctly reported ;). )
lm28469 3y ago
We gave up religion(s) and tradition(s) for consumerism, turns out buying shit is not the optimal long term fulfilment panacea. Add absolute lack of body and mind hygiene and you get to feel like a complete waste of life by the time you hit your 40s. By then you realise discipline/work could have put you in a really nice place, socially, physically, professionally, but now it's too late, the damage is done, you can only pick up the crumbs and have to work twice as hard to get anywhere close to what it could have been => mid life crisis. Buying a porsche gt3 and a nice house with a swimming pool won't make up for wasting 20+ yours of your life behind a desk
multiplegeorges 3y ago
> religious friends ... it's very hard to imagine them going through one So much great literature and philosophy was written specifically because religious people went through crises of faith where they re-interpreted their entire social/religious world. Kierkegaard being one most people know. Same thing, different name.

TeMPOraL 3y ago

Having grown up in a highly religious community: > a rich spiritual life and deep engagement with community I kind of suspect this is one of the ways mid-life crisis manifests. That, and covert alcoholism.

majormajor 3y ago

> Thinking to my religious friends who have 5+ kids, a rich spiritual life and deep engagement with community, it's very hard to imagine them going through one. I grew up in a church and will tell you right off the bat that neither church nor family prevents one. Googling will give you no shortage of Christian articles and resources around dealing with them. Nobody is immune to that sense of "everything looks peachy on the outside, internally there's a lot of frustration" with the status quo. It does give you a big blast radius so your midlife crisis can wreck a family or two, though, if it leads you towards certain things.

kajecounterhack 3y ago
Also, 5+ kids may seem helpful, but not because you won't face existential crisis with five kids -- you just will have more trouble finding time to process. Kids keep you very busy, until they don't. As an ex-church person: the "community" is pretty hurtful to a lot of people and isn't immune to high school clique / cult of personality type things, even if you discount other obvious harms (the experience of gay kids in church, women being told they can't teach, way-too-frequent abuses of adolescents by church authorities like youth pastors and priests). Christian stuff in particular is also heavy on the shame and that is pretty bad for psychological safety & wellness. My mother in law was a divorcee and made to feel real bad about that even to this day. As a boy I remember growing up and self-flagellating for every "impure" thought that crossed my mind. "Rich spiritual life" is a pretty branding phrase for bankrupt ideology.
- sclarisse 3y ago
  Christianity is heavy on the guilt. If you’re self-flagellating, that’s a sign it’s guilt, not shame. East Asian cultures are more about the shame. And try not to go anywhere where the social order is based on Fear.
  - kajecounterhack 3y ago
    I'm East Asian. Guilt and shame here are the same thing -- the distinction between moral vs non-moral is blurry at best. The only difference is who you're disappointing and what the perceived consequence is.
- watwut 3y ago
  > Kids keep you very busy, until they don't. Honestly, seeing some catholic families with 5+ kids, the model where one partner simply spends all time in work and hobbies while leaving all childcare to the other one is super common too.
  - throw9away6 3y ago
    Doesn’t really seem fair for the wife, I don’t really understand why she puts up with it
- nickd2001 3y ago
  Its sad that you had such a negative experience of church, due to people's failings. Its not like that everywhere. There are church communities that are welcoming to people that are divorced, gay, etc. Sounds like you've been among people who lack of proper understanding of "love others as yourself" and "judge not lest thy be judged" which are fundamental to true Christianity (and other religions too). I'd advocate, don't give up, don't dismiss religion based on people's failings, but instead, challenge people
  - kajecounterhack 3y ago
    Another way to look at it is that this isn't "people's failings." This is structural. Churches perpetuate problematic power structures and base their teachings on incoherent writings that can easily be interpreted to mean all kinds of nasty things. You can point to Jesus sayings in "true Christianity" and still have to explain yourself as to why Apostle Paul is allowed to say some crazy stuff in the same compilation text (the bible) that everyone loves to harp on. Also, didn't Jesus compare a gentile woman to a dog? Wowza that's some offensive and racist stuff. > There are church communities that are welcoming to people that are divorced, gay, etc There are plenty of church communities that _claim_ to be welcoming to such folks. You don't have to stick around long to see that it's not true. And it's also not hard to see why - the underlying foundations of the Christian church especially are rotten. Churches don't have full control of their congregants so churches will never be safe spaces as long as they teach from texts that are racist, sexist, and encourage illogical thinking. I _did_ church shop for a year in hip San Francisco of all places, before coming to this (obvious in hindsight) realization. TBT that time I walked into a church and the first thing they said was "Women were created to be mens' helper" - a panel with Francis Chan. Walked out pretty fast after that. > I'd advocate, don't give up, don't dismiss religion based on people's failings, but instead, challenge people What does that mean -- challenge people? You're encouraging folks like me to put up with endless bullshit and look for something that doesn't exist. No thanks.
sky_rw 3y ago
Going to church regularly does not mean you have a rich spiritual life.
grassmannian 3y ago
Interestingly, it seems like some women's monastic communities (ostensibly the pinnacle of rich spiritual life and engagement with community) are much less likely to experience midlife crises, see https://www.jstor.org/stable/43682330 https://www.jstor.org/stable/43682330 Figures 1 and 2.
- sph 3y ago
  I reckon nuns don't deal with a lot of Zoom job interviews after being laid off, pointy-haired bosses, relationship troubles, making ends meet, and paying rent. That helps a little.
Lamad123 3y ago
Yes, you can almost say that St. Augustine and Luther and others were having some sort of quarter/mid-life crises.
deleted 3y ago
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UncleOxidant 3y ago

When those 5+ kids move out of the house, that's when those guys tend to have their midlife crisis.

xyzelement 3y ago
I think it's again a modern secular assumption that your kids move out and there's some sort of deep emptiness. The traditional expectation is that your kids move out to be married and bless you with grandchildren, not to abandon you to rot.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  I don't see how the kids "blessing" their parents with grandchildren matters much. My parents had a hard time adapting after I, as the youngest, also moved out and finally started being able to support myself, even though they had grandchildren from my eldest sibling to think about. In the end, for them the point still stands that their own kids are adults now, and while grandchildren are fun to take care of, they aren't typically the same amount of responsibility on grandparents as on parents. It still leads to suddenly having time to think about their own life, as well as the freedom to take risks, creating the same room for a crisis.
  - badpun 3y ago
    > My parents had a hard time adapting after I, as the youngest, also moved out and finally started being able to support myself, even though they had grandchildren from my eldest sibling to think about. "Thinking about" probably won't do them much good. Seeing them on a regular basis, on the other hand, has great effects on many grandparents. Obviously, this requires that children don't move far away from parents, but many family-oriented parents stay close.
    - dotnet00 3y ago
      I don't literally mean that they only have to think about them.

version_five 3y ago

I thought the circumstances you describe are what leads to the typical midlife crisis. Not always, but people wake up and realize they're trapped in a life (kids, obligations, job) that sort of crept up on them, and feel like they need to let off some steam. A lot of (perhaps including the article's authors) modern "mid-life crises" are more what I've heard of as "quarter life crises" - you finish school, get a job, you're in a rut where you don't have an obvious next step and you're starting at possible decades of the same, you get depressed. But now a lot of people are like 35 at that time so it almost overlaps with the 80's version of a midlife crisis. This happened to me, I accomplished roughly what I'd planned professionally at about 30 and then realized it wasn't what I wanted and had no idea what to do next.

PaulHoule 3y ago
There is this book https://www.amazon.com/Passages-Predictable-Crises-Adult-Life/dp/0553271067 https://www.amazon.com/Passages-Predictable-Crises-Adult-Lif... which factually points out that most people go through several crises in their adult life. As a rule of thumb you have one every seven years or so. I had one around 30, another in my early 40s, and another at 49. If you read between the lines in Freud you could also get the picture that a psychoanalysis would be likely to span the duration of such a crisis (say 18 months) and improve the outcome you get. The author, Gail Sheehy, gave a talk at Ithaca College about a decade ago and actually said that she disowned that book for a few reasons: (1) Passages is positive for divorce as a way that people who are evolving at different rates and in different directions to realize themselves. She realized later on that divorce is overall highly destructive. (2) The paths that people take aren't quite so predictable. (3) Passages was based on a study of graduates of an elite school, one thing that stands out is that none of the case studies consider serious deprivation, in fact you never once hear that somebody wanted to do X or Y but didn't because they couldn't afford it. In the sense that the experience of most people is "dark matter" you might want to read https://www.amazon.com/Silences-Tillie-Olsen/dp/1558614400 https://www.amazon.com/Silences-Tillie-Olsen/dp/1558614400 In particular divorce might work out well for somebody like Bill Gates or Elon Musk who can trade in their tired old nag for a hot young thing but for most ordinary people and their families it's profoundly harmful. Sheehy went on to write numerous more books on the same subject.

Loocid 3y ago

Isn't the stereotypical midlife crisis the Dad whose kids have all moved out? I don't think that has anything to do with modernity or secularity, it's more to do with a large change that triggers a revaluation of your life. That could happen to anyone.

fullshark 3y ago
I view the stereotypical midlife crisis as the dad/husband who decides to buy a sports car and act 25 again possibly cheat on his wife.
- Loocid 3y ago
  That's the stereotypical midlife crisis "what" for sure. I was more talking about the "who". My point was I don't think it's limited to the secular modern person.
xyzelement 3y ago
// the Dad whose kids have all moved out I think that too is a modern and secular thing. If you got 5 kids there's a good chance the older one has made you a grandfather while the younger ones are still at home. So you sort of transition from meaning to meaning

maximinus_thrax 3y ago

> Thinking to my religious friends who have 5+ kids, a rich spiritual life and deep engagement with community, it's very hard to imagine them going through one. As someone who grew up in a religious family/community, this comment made me burst out laughing.

api 3y ago
When modern people feel unhappy they often fantasize about an idealized traditional or primitive life imagining that would be better. People in those lives often do the opposite, imagining being unencumbered or living some kind of cosmopolitan life. It’s pretty normal to imagine “elsewhere” when you are unhappy. “Elsewhere” is by definition not where you are. As far as I can tell angst is normal for human beings and everyone in every lifestyle feels it.

Barrin92 3y ago

>it's very hard to imagine them going through one because they've outsourced most critical decisions to their faith. As Jung said, people don't have ideas, ideas have people. It's very easy to obtain meaning by getting in a sense hijacked by a very convincing set of beliefs.

theduder99 3y ago
sounds like Jung's idea has you.
- kgwxd 3y ago
  Or you could just look out the window and see Jung simply made an objective observation. Facts don't need an authoritative voice to make them any truer.
  - operatingthetan 3y ago
    I think you're sidestepping an important nuance of what Jung was saying.
xyzelement 3y ago
I agree with the "ideas have people" framing. If you are choosing a set of ideas to "he had by" - ones that let you navigate life (eg bypassing the midlife crisis) sound good.
mistermann 3y ago
It's also very easy to fall for the sensation that not being religious grants one omniscient knowledge of those who are. Somewhat ironically, some religions are some of the best ways to learn about this and other important phenomena that seem unknown to secularists (in ways that are important, and doing some reading ain't guaranteed to make the cut). Everyone is doing their best, but each of us have our own blind spots. Best to work as a team so we can cover each other's shortcomings.

grecy 3y ago

> I wonder if the mid life crisis is a completely modern and secular malady The hint is in the name - crisis. I genuinely think it's a point people reach where they realize (or finally admit to themselves) that what they've been doing with their lives up until this point is deeply unsatisfying, so they make drastic changes. Our "modern" western life is not fulfilling, healthy or enjoyable.

VoodooJuJu 3y ago
>Our "modern" western life is not fulfilling, healthy or enjoyable. Who is "our"? Western countries, especially Anglo countries, are comprised of a thousand thousand different cultures. Which among those are unfulfilling, unenjoyable, unhealthy? I'm sure some are nice. We're not all the same, not remotely.
- grecy 3y ago
  > Which among those are unfulfilling, unenjoyable, unhealthy? I was thinking of the one where we go to jobs for 40+ hours a week that are not fulfilling, we don't get to spend much time with our families, we don't get time to sleep and exercise enough... and we have to do it for essentially our entire lives in the hopes we'll get a few years to be put out to pasture
  - taneq 3y ago
    Sure is pretty unfulfilling to be not independently wealthy
    - grecy 3y ago
      There are many other ways to go about it, wealth is not needed to live a fulfilling life. I have found it extremely fulfilling to work for my own needs - building houses, hunting my own food, growing my own vegetables. Doing so takes 20-30 hours per week, and the rest of the time I get to spend with my friends and family. Obviously it's not for everyone, but I'm saying that people get into a mid life "crisis" because they realize what they've been doing isn't making them happy deep down.

VoodooJuJu 3y ago

[flagged]

FeteCommuniste 3y ago
What a load of crap. Many of us haven’t been to church in decades yet still are in loving marriages with kids, not frowning and “all alone.” If there’s resentment it’s in part an effect of this stupid insistence that only religious “solutions” can lead to happiness.
- dang 3y ago
  Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
deleted 3y ago
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verbify 3y ago

I grew up as an ultra orthodox Jew - where people have 5+ kids and there is a lot of focus on religious life and community. There are plenty of extremely bitter people who might love their kids but feel trapped by the lifestyle (they don't want to leave their kids, spouse but it gives them no space for anything else). And many of them struggle with meaning in life - the community, religion and kids don't solve that.

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lanstin 3y ago
Different religion, but my ex-wife's family were all baptists and I've never met women as angry at men as the older women in that family. They had obeyed and submitted and got angrier and angrier as the decades wore on. Didn't help that, despite the strict religion, there was a good bit of alcoholism amongst the men. They did have very good food at the family reunions, and a big family, but that's about the limit of positive characteristics I can enumerate. (Not that everyone was bad, a few cousins managed to join the modern world of loving-kindness and science).
xyzelement 3y ago
I am somewhat familiar with Orthodox Jews, though probably a different area than what you grew up with. I think what's been lost in places is that living an outwardly religious life is one thing[0], while being deeply religious inwardly is the next level. The second thing is harder to teach or even talk about so it gets ignored, vs ritual etc. It's maybe the same as the difference between "dragging yourself to the gym"[0] and "loving fitness." //And many of them struggle with meaning in life - the community, religion and kids don't solve that. This seems like the crux of the difference between deep and superficial engagement with religion. In my experience, a deeply religious person (of any religion) sees a profound amount of connectivity and meaning in everything in the universe, and sees their family and community life in the context of contributing to that meaning. The statement you made is analogous to me to "working out doesn't make you fitter" - it puts a big question mark around the exercise you're doing. [0] While obviously connecting deeply is the goal, there's a lot of benefit to even the less deep engagement. Your friends whom you describe as bitter - you can imagine that the secular society is full of bitterness too, plus no community or kids. Likewise, even if you "drag yourself to the gym" you're way ahead of those who don't, even though you may hate it.

ryandrake 3y ago

Nearing-50, non-religious person checking in here: I don't think it has much to do with religion or non-religion. I must be really lucky or really privileged because I haven't had even a hint of "crisis" that I can remember. Knock on wood that I don't catch it somewhere. Isn't the common denominator of a midlife crisis a yearning for the past? Overwhelming nostalgia? Dad buying a sports car so he can pretend to be 20 and virile again? Mom downing the mimosas at 10AM wishing she didn't make so many mistakes in the past? Uncle Joe can't stop talking about how he was High School senior football captain and had the time of his life in the '70s and that everything sucks now? Me, on the other hand? I'd never want to go back to my 30s or 20s and especially my teenage years. High School was literally the worst part of my life, I'm talking rock bottom, and my 20s were not much better. But every year thereafter has been better than the previous one. I'm totally optimistic about the future! And while I might not be making more money year after year, I always feel like I have a purpose to achieve, and as my kid grows up, there always seems like there are future moments to look forward to. None of this requires religion.

anthonygd 3y ago
> Isn't the common denominator of a midlife crisis a yearning for the past? Overwhelming nostalgia? I don't think so. I'd describe a midlife crisis as more of a fear you don't have enough time to do what's next. I've always wanted a Ferrari; if I don't get it now, when will I? I discovered bouldering in my 40's and hate the fact that I can never be competitive; if only I had started 20 years earlier... at this point, every year limits how much time I have left for those new adventures I haven't discovered yet. I think Uncle Joe just complains because he's crabby.
- Schnitz 3y ago
  Exactly this. You realize that your choices actually matter in the big picture. You have only so many years to work with, it becomes clear that some of the things in the “later” bucket will have to move to the “never” bucket. That makes you question things much more. Should I really go to the pub for the umpteenth time with my mates and lose my Sunday to a hangover? Oh I’d rather do something else and get a full Sunday! That’s only one example, but it is also a good one. You can try to make the most of your loss of invincibility and infinity and utilize that feeling to make better choices than in the past. No point dwelling on if those 10000 hours playing video games were well spent.

kgwxd 3y ago

[flagged]

xyzelement 3y ago
That doesn't sound like a person with actual religion.
- mistermann 3y ago
  I like the way Kierkegaard inverted the scenario: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM24cLo8M/ https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM24cLo8M/ To me, this is better for a causality oriented approach to things, versus the "cultural common sense, everyone knows" intuitive approach that seems to be recommended.

sanderjd 3y ago

For what it's worth, I don't think this is right. The "well, how did I get here?" problem can happen to anybody. Maybe it's not happening to your friends, but certainly there are many people like them who wake up some days wondering why they are struggling to find enough purpose and meaning in all those beautiful things they've built their lives around, and battling to envision their path back to contentment.

boringg 3y ago

The U Curve probably correlates with midlife crises being that being at the low of the U curve with some other push triggers a crises. But yeah religiosity does correlate positively with happiness (no surprise there - you offload existential worries for religious dogma) https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.837638/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.8376...

Lamad123 3y ago

It's not!! We were told as kids that prophets in general became prophets at that age around 40!! It's the case for Mohammed at least and if your read up on his life around that age, you can easily imagine he was going through a mid-life crisis!!

za3faran 3y ago
One can imagine anything, including unrealistic and baseless things. Reality, however, is different. This is evident by the many people who carefully studied his biography and ended up embracing Islam (some of them being heavily anti-Islam themselves before that).
- Lamad123 3y ago
  A mid-life crisis is not necessarily a bad thing!! It's probably one of the most important spiritual experiences a person can have. We are told that Mohammed used to spend long times in the Hiraa cave kinda meditating or thinking about things that are not part of ordinary life.. Somebody with midlife crisis is one who has questions and searching for answers! They are asking: "Who am I? What am I doing in this world!?"
  - za3faran 3y ago
    Contemplating in God's creations is not a midlife crisis, but a spiritual endeavor.

j0hnyl 3y ago

Secular people seem way more emotionally stable to me than those I would call religious.

dang 3y ago

No doubt it takes different forms now than in the 14th century, but Dante began his Inferno with a mid-life crisis: Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a dark forest For the straightforward path had been lost.

ddq 3y ago
Hell, the book of Ecclesiastes could be read as a midlife crisis. “Vanity of vanity, all is vanity.”
pbourke 3y ago
A man wakes up in a strange room He doesn't recognize the woman next to him He gets out of bed, there's a wallet on the dresser He opens it up, looks inside at the driver's license in there with his face on it And someone else's name

weregiraffe 3y ago

[flagged]

dang 3y ago
Please don't cross into religious flamewar. That's the last thing we want in HN threads, and we're trying to avoid flamewar, putdowns, and name-calling in general. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking that intention to heart, we'd be grateful. Fortunately most other commenters sharing your point of view in this thread have been making their substantive points thoughtfully, so there are plenty of good examples nearby. Edit: unfortunately your account has been posting a lot of unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments - e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36391350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36391350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36336547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36336547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35872437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35872437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34726946 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34726946 Can you please not do that? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

za3faran 3y ago

Yes I wouldn't be surprised at all. It's easy to see how much lower suicide rates are for example in so called "third world" countries that have been war torn, due to no small part by Western colonialism, compared to "advanced first world" countries, which are generally highly secular and have higher standards of living. Believing in God plays a major role in maintaining mental sanity, particularly in the faces of challenges. Personally speaking, Islam has helped me and many others I have either personally observed or heard about navigate far from ideal circumstances. I've known people who have lost spouses, children, or even entire close families, yet they remain steadfast and strong.

ihateolives 3y ago
> It's easy to see how much lower suicide rates are for example in so called "third world" countries How good/trustworthy is the data on suicides in those countries? Highly religious countries are not keen on showing and sharing unfavourable data.
- za3faran 3y ago
  That last claim needs backing up. Sources are World Health Organization (Suicide Rates 2019) and World Health Statistics (World Health Organization)

kortilla 3y ago

Lol no, I saw religious cousins’ families go through major shakeups during midlife crises. One ended with divorce after a nice string of affairs and a departure from the church. Another was quitting a stable white collar job, buying a motorcycle, and spending nearly every night at a bar. A community does not prevent them. A spiritual life definitely doesn’t prevent them (disillusionment is frequently a cause). Kids don’t help, but they certainly put immense pressure on you to not upend everything so it gives the appearance that it might not be happening to outsiders.

nickd2001 3y ago

100% . People who prioritise helping others, as long as they don't overdo it and burn out, are far less prone to depression. Having a bad day? Feeling depressed, frustrated with your life? Go do something to put a smile on someone else's face. That can really snap you out of it. Of course, we (and I'd have to include myself) all forget to do this as often as we should. I agree that its a secular malady. Its almost as though Jesus was exactly right and knew what was good for us ( * caveat - this is based on an assumption that Jesus actually existed / what he said was correctly reported ;). )

lm28469 3y ago

We gave up religion(s) and tradition(s) for consumerism, turns out buying shit is not the optimal long term fulfilment panacea. Add absolute lack of body and mind hygiene and you get to feel like a complete waste of life by the time you hit your 40s. By then you realise discipline/work could have put you in a really nice place, socially, physically, professionally, but now it's too late, the damage is done, you can only pick up the crumbs and have to work twice as hard to get anywhere close to what it could have been => mid life crisis. Buying a porsche gt3 and a nice house with a swimming pool won't make up for wasting 20+ yours of your life behind a desk

multiplegeorges 3y ago

> religious friends ... it's very hard to imagine them going through one So much great literature and philosophy was written specifically because religious people went through crises of faith where they re-interpreted their entire social/religious world. Kierkegaard being one most people know. Same thing, different name.