The Midlife Crisis on a Budget

A "midlife crisis" is the bout of unease that can arrive in middle age, when a person, sensing the years beginning to mount, responds with sudden and often dramatic change. The classic symptom, endlessly rehearsed online, is the impulsive purchase of a flashy sports car, bought less for transport than for reassurance. It is one of the internet's most dependable jokes, the sight of a settled adult, alarmed by a birthday, bolting for the nearest convertible the way a startled animal makes for open ground.

The joke has lately taken an economic turn. Younger people point out, not without cause, that they cannot afford the traditional version at all, the boat and the convertible being well beyond reach, and so the crisis has adapted to leaner conditions. In its modern form it appears as a sudden and total devotion to marathon training, or an overnight fortune spent on cycling equipment, or some hyper-specific hobby pursued with alarming intensity. The underlying disquiet is the same. Only the budget has changed, obliging the sufferer to nest with whatever materials are to hand.

What the meme gently exposes is a very old fear in new clothes, the dawning sense that time is finite and moving in one direction only. Laughing at it is a way of managing it, and each generation simply adapts the ritual to its means, the wealthy to their sports cars and the rest to their running shoes. There is a certain comfort in watching everyone arrive at the same nervous milestone and respond, each in turn, by taking up something strenuous. One notes it all from the edge of the field, ears turning, in no particular hurry to grow old.