The thing is, there's something boring about the crisis. It's not just that everyone goes through it, although that's part of it. It's more that everyone goes through it forever. As far as I can tell, you are either in a state of panic, or a state of exhaustion, or else you're in the crisis. I heard of it first as the "mid-life" crisis, but then in college people started talking about a "quarter-life" crisis, and it was obvious even then that it was the same crisis that never got resolved. Instead you just postpone it, apparently, by having children (which I guess moves you into the states of panic and exhaustion previously mentioned).
I don't mean to sound like we're all doomed. In fact, I think there's a lot of happiness and peace to be found among panic, exhaustion, and crisis. But today, or at least this morning, Abbie and I both got beat up on a little bit. And the humidity really doesn't help since it makes all endeavor seem futile. And all the worse in December, when you feel like it's really unfair and you're being punished for something you didn't do and hadn't even really considered doing. This malaise, as Abbie likes to call it, strikes me as a particularly wild accident of evolution and chemistry.
Speaking of those, we just lost a thrilling round of the 1980s edition of Trivial Pursuit. Bubbles and Karen came over and we had a little Chanukah party, which produced enough panic and exhaustion to give the crisis a solid kick in the pants. And it was really fun. Also, Abbie bought some new shirts, an activity with mysterious but definite chemical effects:
This one has a red bean and a grain of rice (not pictured) and they're in love (pictured).
This one has buttons, which Jack will love and which therefore make us happy in advance.
So, nothing has been resolved, but it's okay. I'm pretty confident that both of those will stay true for the foreseeable. And I guess that's a kind of resolution.
1 comment:
Here's the thing: it's not the same old boring crisis that never gets resolved (though it certainly can look that way and for some people probably is). Think of it as an order of magnitude problem: if you're living in Duncan Plaza, your issues today (your crisis) are "Where am I going to sleep tonight?", "What am I going to eat today?" and other extremely immediate concerns. So supposing you resolve those issues (a job or other income source that gets you an apartment and groceries), then you move to on higher order problems, some of which are iterative (better job, better home), some of which are not (mint or regular dental floss, how to use leisure time). And on up the ladder, until you have the imediate and future issues addressed, at which you can afford to dwell on metaphysical and ethical issues. And nobody ever resolves those, so yes, there is always a crisis (if you're a thinking, discerning type person, but not necessarily always the crisis.
And children are not a distraction from the crisis, but their whole universe of crises of (see above) first order immediacy.
More button pictures, please. (This last from Jack.)
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