Adventures at Midlife

 Michael Kinsley muses on growing older in an interesting essay in the New Yorker. (Via.)

Between what your parents gave you to start with—genetically or culturally or financially—and pure luck, you play a small role in determining how long you live. And even if you add a few years through your own initiative, by doing all the right things in terms of diet, exercise, sleep, vitamins, and so on, why is that to your moral credit? Extending your own life expectancy is the most selfish motive imaginable for doing anything. Do it, by all means. I do. But for heaven’s sake don’t take a bow and expect applause.     

Boomers, he claims, have made everything a competition: He who dies with the most toys — or biggest house, smartest children, fanciest car, etc. — wins. And, he claims, it would seem that we’ve added longevity to that list, even though, outside of the usual healthy living practices, we have precious little to do with how long our run on earth continues.

The oldest boomers, born in the late nineteen-forties, are just turning sixty, and the last boomer game is about to start—the game of competitive longevity. So how are you doing? Let’s say you’re sixty. To begin with, you’re still alive, which gives you a leg up. Or are the real winners in our youth-obsessed generation the boomers who died young, like John Belushi? Well, perhaps, but you’ve missed that boat. There may be glamour in dying in your early twenties. There is no glamour in dying in your late fifties.     

And, he claims, the competition will get even fiercer:

The last boomer competition is not just about how long you live. It is also about how you die. This one is a “Mine is shorter than yours”: you want a death that is painless and quick.     

I once read a really fascinating book, How We Die, written by a Sherwin B. Nuland, M.D. The bottom line? The romantic ideal of dying a “good death” will be the gift to a very few. Death is for the most part a messy and painful business, and we should try really hard to minimize the messiness and pain for those we love and hope and pray they’ll do the same for us. Period.

Kingsley received a diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease at a relatively young age. “Sometimes,” he says, “I feel like a scout from my generation, sent out ahead to experience in my fifties what even the healthiest boomers are going to experience in their sixties, seventies, or eighties.” He’s clearly benefitting from some new therapies, but the progression of the disease will be slowed, not stopped.

I’ve already heard from several midlife friends who have developed serious illnesses or conditions and are feeling absolutely BETRAYED by their bodies. “How could this happen?” they say. “I’ve taken such good care of myself!” And I’m taking a lot more medications than I thought I ever would and am regularly peering into the mirror, looking for that next basal cell carcinoma. 

More importantly, from reading the blogs and talking with my friends, it seems that most of us midlifers are currently dealing with aging parents and other relatives, easing their transition into what comes next. And, most powerfully, we are ultimately teaching our children and their generation how to deal with us when that time comes.

In this sphere, I hope we will be remembered for our compassion, not our competitiveness.