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Digital
Mid-Life
By Bill Zahren
(Posted
03/19/99)
I
heard a story on the radio during my lovely morning drive
to work Thursday about a woman somewhere whose friends claim
she's 143. I wonder if she wears big, black, expensive, trendy
boots too. I'll have to ask her at our next "Extremely Old,
Frail and Nearly Dead" (EOFND) meeting. I feel a tagline coming
on: "EOFND, Anti-Youth Solutions for Crustiness Scalability,
Manageability and Serviceability." Don't beat yourself up.
I'm a professional ad writer.
Anyway, the 143-year-old is pretty
much my sister since in February I turned - you might want
to crawl under your desk and place your head between your
knees -- 35. Being born in 1964 where I work is like
having been hatched in the Ice Ace. My high-talent co-worker
(not that all my co-workers aren't all high talent) Katie
just turned 27. 27. Erika will soon turn 25. I've got
back hair that's older than 25. (Raise your hand if you were
born in the '80s. Nothing personal, but I hate you.)
I
think I'm in the midst of a digital mid-life crisis. I thought
these things arrived when men hit 40. Mine's early.
Maybe it got here on the Information Superhighway that you
can't swing a dead cat without hearing about. It started on
my birthday (February 7. Mark your calendars for next year)
when I bought a pair of Doc Martens. If you don't know what
Doc Martens are, stop reading. You're not hip enough to continue.
They're boots, OK? Big black ones. I paid US$120 for them
at the mall. My father the auto mechanic just passed out when
he read that. I'd go years without seeing $120 total
when I was growing up (In the '70s OK?? Just GET OFF
ME!) and I tossed the credit card out and blew all
that and a bag of chips on some boots.
Since then, I've gotten my fat measured, started working out,
dropped 20 pounds, and become fixated on my blood cholesterol
and bowel movements. I find myself in line with the 70-year-olds
to use the automatic blood pressure checker at Shopko. I'm
thinking of getting one of those $40,000, gratuitously huge
Destroyer class sports utility vehicles and pretending that
I got it because it's good in snow.
I've even started to worry about fashion. Not that you can
tell by the way I dress, but I worry about it. First impressions
and all that. Dressing to let people know I have some money
in the bank. Soon, I'll be dressed in all black with my bad-ass
boots and strangers will ask me, "Are you enjoying your visit
to the Midwest?" and my people have lived here for five generations.
I exchange hip e-mail with business associates in L.A.
and NYC.
Here's what happens when you reach this supposed half-way
point in your life. You start to hear the clock counting down.
You start to hear 60 or 65 approaching. And, even more insidious,
you start comparing your "success" to others your age or younger.
Suddenly, some 34-year-olds turn up with land yachts, mansions
at the Dunes, cell phones and valets and you say, "HEY, how
did that punk get all that stuff? I must suck." The danger
here, of course, is that you only really see this other person's
outside, not what's going on inside. And, how do you measure
success anyway? A great short game in golf, huge house and
a Beemer? My mid-life brain says "that'll work," but my young
heart says, "It must be much deeper than that."
Maybe it's all the "maximizing profitability" and "optimizing
assets" talk that swirls around me at work. The relentless
drive to optimize and maximize can start you thinking of quantity
of life rather than quality. Me, I like a little inefficiency
in my world. Tickling my daughters last night didn't make
me one dollar, didn't expand my power base, increase my personal
network, position me for career optimization. But I'll remember
how they laughed long after they move me in with my 148-year-old
sister.
Sometimes by focusing so relentlessly on the long-term, we
step right over all the cool stuff we've got going short-term.
It's scary up here in the mid-30s. You kids take your time
getting here. Meanwhile, I think I'll get all nutty and think
short-term today. The pleasure of meshing talents with a co-worker
on an unnoticed project that exceeds our own expectations.
That's after I put Ben Gay on my knees
and polish my boots, of course.
©
1999 Bill Zahren
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