Mid Life Crisis

GroupDIY Audio Forum

Help Support GroupDIY Audio Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

analag

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 23, 2005
Messages
1,942
Location
Mars
Now that it's been established that most of us on here is a bunch of old farts or farts that's getting old...how have dealt (those of us who have) and how are dealing (those of us who are) with the above title.
 
According to the book Passages
depends on how you delt with the previous
landmark milestones periods of your life
I'm on my way to giving up on the vaniety cd
[ what doe's it matter if no one hears it ]
but apparently i'm distracting myself with too much
computer time
 
Well...if you believe you live eternally (in some sense of the word, at least meaning that there is some kind of hope beyond this life)...then whats mid-way of eternity?

Having just graduated my youngest from high school and facing the prospect of an empty nest with no spouse...I'm thinking...

...A big boat, with enough room to futz around making gear and recording, park it in the harbor on occasion...

They say when the tide comes in all boats rise....
 
I'm in too.

Trying to be kind with ex-wife?
Doing only things I like?
No more big $$ jobs if they ruins your health?
New house?

The worst thing is all the social habits have to be redesigned..
You turn your head and you discover no more afternoon-evening with friends,
all these kids around.

Another solution:
wearing t-shirts with "sex is the mathematics urge sublimated" paint on a shoulder.
and then having deals with girls saying "I like your t-shirt, its really sexy".
ok not a solution.

Jokes apart, I dont know.
No idea, really.
Or not, there is 1 idea:
building a studio only for my own musical productions/writing.
Your gear, your plans and stop.
But it takes soooo long time.
My friends are now saying I like to build more than composing.
Dont have to listen to that.

 
Seems to be a company of frustrated artist in here...

You guys should see the movie "Up" just came out by Disney/Pixar...

One of the messages it proclaims is its never to late to chase that dream.
 
I tend to live more internally. I too need to be more gently with the ex... after all living with her caused me to spend more time in my basement studio working ideas like the poorman 660.
Earlier this month I bought a car for the explicit reason of spending money on it...swapping out the engine and gearbox. I like grease and oil almost as much as I like solder fumes or maybe it's the other way around...hmmm. I've also become a big believer in the second amendment.
 
This is how I keep the mid-life thing at bay :

An old, beautiful 'waste of money' car to rebuild ...
A farmhouse studio with masses of diy to build and use ...
Leave behind the high stakes, high stress killer jobs ....

and

More guitars!
 
The only thing bothers me is that I don't have the same energy that I used to have. I used to work minimum 15 hours a day, and on top of that used to do one non stop 24 hours shift a week. I remember getting into the workshop on a Monday morning and coming out on Wednesday, having worked non stop without a serious break. Now if I do an overnighter it takes me a week to recover, and with ulsers in my mouth. Mind is there but the body says no. My eyesight also started to go down in the last few months, I need a pair of glasses. I am using mignifier more and more to read component IDs. But on that department I have done very well considering that I have worked on fine detail for amost all my life. Hearing is good as I have not exposed myself to high spl all the time, unlike full time sound engineers. I have not tested recently but I don't think hitting 17k would be a problem. As a late starter, having a highly energetic, eight-year-old guy is a bit tiring. On that department I wish we did it when we were younger. But other than these nothing has changed in terms of the things I do and want to do. It is taking a bit longer and that is all. Keep going.
 
I just got sober, new lease of life ;D

that and the fact that no matter how many times the wife tells me i am 42 deep deep down, I know i am only 21

 
Relax, you're lucky you're not a female.
Just laugh at all those young people trying to escape the inevitable.

 
Pick any positive maxim , adage or cliche , keep it with you for a day
or until you pick another one then hold that

Energy is wasted on youth , not quite a positive one , how about
what you think about grows

could fix the house up give yourself a nicer / different enviroment

My divorce superceeded any crisis [ can't afford a red sports car or
imagine spending time with someone much younger than myself ]
just take care of the kids , pay the bills and find joy in those things
for me
but this diy stuff is a bit of a distraction for getting music done

If the natural default of life is joy and you don't have to be a professor
to understand it [ available to all ] then it can't be that complicated
So whatever moves you , enjoying beauitful drives with your partner in
your new car that that you restored sounds fine , me
i get out and take a walk

If you were specificaly looking for a list of things people buy
i keep trying to relive my youth through Marshall amps
that seems typical for the age , now able to buy things one
couldn't when they were younger .

best wishes , did someone say Zen and the art of motorcycle mechanix ?






 
While I'm not quite mid life age yet, 31, I feel like it's been an eternity since my true youth. My life has changed in almost every way possible in the last 7-8 years.

I used to be a semi-pro halfpipe snowboarder, and i did nothing but snowboard and skateboard almost every day. I even spent 5 weeks each summer in Whistler to keep training. At the tail end of my "career" (I never got a paycheck, just LOTS of product and contest winnings)  I went to school for advertising and marketing, got a job, was overworked and underpayed and then I quit. I started building fence and decks, solely because i could, and needed a paycheck. Ended up doing that for a while as I was making triple what I used to.

Then an old snowboard injury took me out of the building game and I had to resort back to the design/advertising business...hated it more than the time before and quit once again.

I got stuck in limbo for a while, odd jobs, cash under the table and LOTS of support from my father who could see I was unhappy and down on life.

The i stumbled on this site and it changed my life, and that's no exaggeration.

After I started putting together Green Pre kits, I started to feel guilty when someone would ask me a question that I didn't know the answer to. So, i talked it over with my fiancee, and decided to go back to school for electronics engineering at the age of 27. That decision made a huge difference in my life. I focused hard on school, worked my ass off to pay for it and finally grew up and took responsibility seriously. Since then I have grown in every way imaginable and juggle diypartssupply.com, building fences and decks, and small cnc projects.

That's why I say that though I am still young, I've come a hell of long way from snowboarding/skateboarding everyday with no plans for the future and feel like it's been an eternity.

Now i have a small business, get a TON of deck work (I'm told that I'm very good at it, lol), I'm married, have a house, and a child on the way later this year.

The crisis that I find my self in is that I feel like I wasted a bunch of time years ago, and i can't get it back, and I need to learn to deal with that fact. I've come to terms with it mostly, but still regret how MUCH time I spent accomplishing nothing more than good times. Don't get me wrong, I value the experience and had a blast, but wish i had come to my senses earlier.

Rant over.
 
you can still make some sense of if
that is what it took to get you where you are now
if not your path may have been different now
the past is dead , the future imagined
one wants to learn and not repeat mistakes
but sometimes that's what it takes to get the lesson
and having some framework is helpful ,
just don't get stuck on expecting things to a certain way
the world  [ and you ] is much more expansive when you are open

enjoy whatever you are doing and then it won't matter what you are doing
you can become more immune to advertising and social conditioning

I'm tempted to blame my marrige for allot of lost years and not putting
enough time into music , but i wasn't smart enough at the time
didn't understand what either of them really took to make work
but i didn't become a drug addict and learned more about others
and myself , it is what it is with no need to judge as right or wrong
just see it as it is , there's beauty in everything







 
Oh i totally agree, and I know full well that i would not be the man i am today without having done every little thing I ever did. As for being open, I am pretty much as open as it gets. I love new ideas, people, and experiences.

Cheers
 
accomplishing nothing more than good times.

But when it's all said and done, won't those really be what mattered?  Traveling learning about what interest me and "accomplishing nothing more than good times" are the things I look back on as highlights...at my old age of 33.  ;D

I'm looking forward to more highlights!
 
Mbira said:
accomplishing nothing more than good times.

But when it's all said and done, won't those really be what mattered?  Traveling learning about what interest me and "accomplishing nothing more than good times" are the things I look back on as highlights...at my old age of 33.  ;D

I'm looking forward to more highlights!


Absolutely! I wish I had allowed myself more good times and less work/study.

Good times keep you young.
 
That's a very valid point boys, but I guess the part I didn't mention was that I spent a chunk of every one of those days (while not snow/skateboarding) stoned outta my tree and watching skate/ snow videos when I could have been doing something much more productive with that idle time.

Unfortunately (and thankfully) I had a really bad panic attack one day after 10 years of daily (multiple times daily, lol) use and haven't touched weed in 5 years now. It was a really weird situation as I am a VERY logical person and NEVER experienced any type of anxiety or paranoia while stoned a single time before that. I miss it a little sometimes, as I used to write all my lyrics with a little pinner down on the waterfront, but I'm happy that I quit for many reasons.

Hopefully that better explains my above rant. I don't take the positive things I was doing for granted...hell i was once ranked top 50 in halfpipe in canada and went to the canadian national championships numerous times.
 
MagnetoSound said:
I wish I had allowed myself more good times and less work/study.

Good times keep you young.


Wrong.

Good times don't keep you young. There is nothing more I hate seeing than zimmer bound spastics trying to rap because they think they are having a good time. They look like bunch of d**kheads. Don't ever end up like one.

Work and study hard when you are young. Accumulate and save. I can assure you, you will have great times when you are older. Just enjoy what you are doing at that very time and don't think about what happened in the past. Take lessons from it but do not depress yourself with in depth analysis of what should or could have been.

I worked my guts out through out all of my younger age. I loved every bits of what I have done. Seeing the completion of a job was one of the best feelings I have ever had. Now at almost fifty I am nowhere near being financially secure but no regrets.

Of course all of these are superseeded by having a multi-millionaire father who can bankroll you all of your life. But as we all know that is very rare.



 
I actually somewhat agree with Sahib, no matter how much fun i had when i was younger, I am having WAY more fun owning a house and having the finances to do and buy the things I wanted to when younger.
 
Back
Top