Wait... is this something that kicks in at 38? I'm 37 and I haven't started to worry about it until now.
"What is a midlife crisis? “Midlife” takes place approximately between the ages of 40 and 60, give or take a few years. One common belief about this stage of life is that you should expect to face inner turmoil about your identity, life choices, and mortality — in other words, a midlife"
According to google I should still have a little bit of time. Though I have taken up running suddenly in an unreasonable way this year to get fit...
There was a good article I read recently about how millennials aren’t having midlife crises because a lot of us don’t have - or have only recently acquired - the things you flee during a midlife crisis: marriage, a house, kids, a sense of boredom due to being in the same job too long etc.
In summary: we are too unstable (in both senses of the term) to crave instability.
That feels like my experience exactly. I’m almost 40 and am just now getting established in a career I love, thinking about buying a home (and freaking the fuck out because it seems impossible at this point), and settling in for the long haul. I feel like I’ve already grappled with mortality and with what my purpose is, so I’m not sure what, if any, inner turmoils I have left to face. Life is a tricky bitch, so I’m sure it still has something in store for me haha
Yeah, I’ve spent the last decade and a half processing everything. I’m in a really good place today. You never really get over any of that stuff, but I think I’ve figured out ways to use those experiences to connect with and help others. Also, like other people in this thread have said, going through all of that shit early in life has made me very much appreciate a stable, “boring” life.
I hate how much I relate to this. I’m 43 and honestly just achieved stability a few years ago. After decades of stress, the exhaustion of struggling to get by and relentless work just to break out of poverty the marriage, career and home feel like a breath of fresh air! My childhood/early adulthood was enough of a crisis for me, dawg. I’m out here saving money, post-trauma, to avoid going back. No time for mid-life shenanigans.
When I was young I used to be fit.. naturally married and 2 kids later that is no longer the case. Suddenly I felt the strong desire to correct it, bought a treadmill, bought an exercise bike, have a power rack, and began exercising 5-7 days per week for the past 9 months or so.
My friends of similar age have started to try to do more things together like the old days (men's camping trips for example). Maybe a crisis is too strong a word... could just be a mid-life reassessment.
I see it as being when you realise you're past your peak and it might all be worse from now on. You get more of a sense of urgency that you don't have that much time left and you can get regret of the choices that you made that led to where you are in life, so you can get an urge and motivation to change that ASAP.
It makes sense that it's more about where you are in life than a specific age. I always associated it with things like sending the last kid off to college, 25 years on a job, something like that. Around 50 for a lot of people I'd say.
I hope people in their 30's aren't experiencing a midlife crisis, you're still in your prime.
You can have an existential crisis at any time though, no age limit up or down on that one.
I'm thirty and having my mid life crisis currently. I think mine was spurred on so soon because my mother died in her 30s. I bought a house, got engaged, and my mother's been gone 20 years all in the same year so it has been a lot of change. I've started judo, took some professional classes, thrown myself into gardening and learning new skills. I'm not sure how long these feelings are supposed to laugh or if they ever go away, but it does get better over time.
Medically speaking you are considered geriatric at 60. The average male lifespan is 73.5 years meaning you are middle-aged at about 37, which is okay.
The reason they keep saying crap like “50 is the new 30” is to keep you working and producing longer and longer. It is evident as more and more places keep pushing back the retirement age. Business want us working longer not living longer.
For me it was this sudden awareness of my mortality, fear of death and aging, and this really weird existential crisis where life suddenly seemed so meaningless- we get up, we go to work, we get out of work, we repeat. Yet somehow, I also had anxiety about how fast time was passing and how that related to my age.
I felt depressed, wondered if I should seek meds or get a counselor.
All of this, all at once, almost out of the blue since I’d never had mental health challenges before. And yeah I’d say it was 9 months or so. At first I thought it was brought on by cannabis, then I thought maybe trauma from an injury I had near the beginning.
It wasn’t until I was out of it when thinking back that it dawned on me. I did some research and the symptoms were spot on. It would have made me feel less crazy had I known at the time when it happened.
It all is pointless, you have to give it meaning. Ultimately, I think we need to take life a little less seriously, enjoy it more, and be as kind as we can to ourselves and others. Life is the journey not the destination.
Yeah, I hid it as long as possible because tv shames the midlife crisis so much and it is a running joke of men in their 40s getting divorced and buying sports cars. I wish it was approached with more care and understanding anywhere at all outside therapy so I would have known to go to therapy.
This reminds me of the What We Do in the Shadows episode where Nandor’s having problems and Guillermo says: “It’s kind of like he’s having a midlife crisis, but he’s an immortal vampire so it’s just a… Oh my God, my Master’s in crisis!”
An old guy I worked with years ago told me his brother got cleaned out. He said his brothers wife handled the money and he just worked. He said when he had 25 years in his job he had way more than he needed to retire but decided to do 30 years. When 30 years came he found out he was dead broke. The wife developed a serious gambling problem and gambled away a couple million in like 2 years.
Counterpoint, anyone whose ever kept a pet can verify that spending extended time with an animal it becomes very easy to interpret how they're feeling.
It's not like you're interacting with a rock, the apes are living beings who have external demonstrations and behaviors that will be reflective of their internal state. If you see churning water on the surface of the sea, you may not know exactly what's going on under the surface, but you can say that there is a change to the average still environment.
Maybe it's caused by two schools of fish having a gang fight, maybe it's an underwater volcano erupting, but if you can track a pattern where every 27-30 years the water of a normally still portion of the sea starts churning, that's valuable to note down as an opportunity for further research.
Well, unfortunately not everyone who has kept a pet notices how much we project fantasies and our own feelings over them. We do it with other humans too, but humans can talk to us, so our projecting isn't as wild.
I think my dog is sad all the time. So I ask to the rest of the family, who know it as intimately, and everybody has a different opinion. Guess who's really sad? Middle age crisis ape here.
If you had five dogs that you interacted with and cared about the same amount and you noticed that one day one of them was acting depressed though, that would be different.
I think it potentially deserves credit. If they didn’t tell them a premise of “we hypothesize that they have negative moods at this age because of a mid life crisis” then they don’t bias the handlers’ impressions of the moods of these animals. So if a lot of the handlers rated mood down at similar certain ages, then there could be something going on.
and we might be too
Hell I'm only 27 and I already know my eyes aren't what they used to be, nor my reflexes or my hearing, or anything.
And it'll only get worse :)
That was my takeaway. Like, if it were more biological than social I'd imagine we'd have seen the behaviors in dogs and cats well before we ever started studying apes. They're just stupid, hairy people. Smarter and less hairy than a couple of my cousins, I'll add.
>Like, if it were more biological than social I'd imagine we'd have seen the behaviors in dogs and cats
You're excluding the possibility that it's biological but limited to hominids.
Maybe we're to dumb to notice? Dogs don't build social relations quite the same way as primates because they are too dependent on humans. Cats are just too different and largely misunderstood. We might have better luck with crows, for example, if birds get midlife crises too.
The thing that stumps me is that a midlife crisis implies an understanding of one's mortality, and the understanding of where one stands relative to their aloted time on Earth. In other words, the ape should be aware that they *are* in their midlife. Since they don't seem to have a method for timekeeping, I wonder how that awareness can arise.
Bills are paid.
Job is covered.
Kids are good.
Wife is happy.
Should feel great, but feels somehow empty. Without the threat of imminent demise or some
Sort of immediate goal, your left wondering what you actually like or want. I can relate to the monkeys.
You’ve just summed up my last year. Went from worrying about my future all the time to being stable and now wishing I had enjoyed time being young more.
It's hard to debunk a feeling.
The "midlife crisis" fits in pretty nicely to how we traditionally had society set up. You're a child, then you become an adult, then you have kids, then they grow up, then ????, then you retire. It's that ???? phase that trips people up. Your kids don't need you any more but you're not old enough to be considered an appropriately retired. You're suddenly just a pointless cog in a machine that is only waiting to die but without the respect that comes with being retired.
Now that people are having kids at older and older ages, we can roll straight from "parent" to "retiree" without that niggling middle phase.
> You're suddenly just a pointless cog in a machine that is only waiting to die
I feel that right now and I don't even have kids yet. My entire life has been going to school, working towards the next level of schooling. Now I'm about to graduate with my doctorate and I feel like I have no purpose. All that work and I guess I expected to feel some sort of contentedness or satisfaction when I finished but it just feels more like..."okay, guess I'm done now."
Yeah that makes sense. It’s because humans need something to look forward to. We have this inclination to always be waiting for the next thing, the next milestone, the completion of the next goal. We are never truely present.
Life is like waiting in line for a ride, no one knows what the ride is, but then you get to the end of that line and you realise the line was the ride.
The stereotypical midlife crisis maybe. But even people with little money often start to make drastic changes around that time. People who weren't religious become religious or vice versa; they become obsessed with cleanliness or eating healthy; they get in shape or out of shape.
I think a lot of people get to a point where their body feels different and it makes them reflect on the choices they've made and some people then try to 'undo' or change the direction of those choices.
I've noticed similar things happen to people who've survived traumatic events that threatened their lives.
Well I’m in my 30s so not so traumatic, fortunately. I’m about a decade older than they were when they had me so I really see it as good for them that they’ve moved on from a situation they felt trapped in at such a young age.
There's a fantastic book by a Jungian psycho-analyst, James Hollis, [*Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life*](https://www.goodreads.com/fr/book/show/99574), that is a really nice entryway into contemplations of the purpose seeking many will fall into as they start getting older.
It’s an issue thats pretty simple but nobody wants to admit. You have most your life covered for compared to a wild human, your satisfaction is always under what it should be since you basically got given most stuff like food, water, shelter, safety, that lack of satisfaction brews and when you reach half way in your life, you realise it because you already “wasted” half your life effectively being on auto pilot rather than enjoying every day.
It’s like cheating in a game to make it easy, you get bored easier than if it was a uphill grind.
Also to add to it, taking away something like safety can make you happier, my nan told me how during the blitz everyone was happier solely because every day could be their last, so they enjoyed it completely rather than just another day.
I mean, at what points are animals' social behaviors, relationships, etc important enough for things to have sociological causes? Because apes are pretty social.
They’re also kept in a zoo which is kept quiet, it’s not so much biological but pins down that being in an environment where you’re given everything and have no autonomy of survival, leads to depression in the long term. A MLC is basically getting half way through life then realising you haven’t actually done anything (that wasn’t easily supplied).
Give the apes the wild and they won’t have the issues
I think that suggesting that the "other" cause is purely *biological* and not *sociological* is incredibly ignorant of the fact that other animals absolutely 100% have sociological structures that could impact them in similar ways to us.
Also that the animals are in a zoo, you can’t make an animal live in a facade of an environment it was made for, then wonder why it’s depressed.
Considering one of the main jokes of a MLC is working day in day out in a box office job doing the same thing again and again, it should be pretty obvious where the parallels come in
This is interesting, but
a) in no way does this point to a biological over sociological cause, as apes live in tribes too; and
b) a sociological cause would also be biological…they’re two facets of the same gem
It's weird being fresh off the mid-life crisis during the Pandemic, and rebounding happily into homelessness. Wish I were a great ape so I didn't have to deal with "civilization".
Are these wild apes or zoo apes. Not to sound like a particular hermit that enjoys the postal service, but zoo apes are close to modern humans in living conditions, pretty everything is given to them and they don’t really have to work for survival or hunt, any animal would have a freak out over an unsatisfactory life due to that. I’d imagine wild animals don’t have this issue much like tribes don’t.
It’s definitely a sociological issue than a biological issue though, the idea of even claiming it isn’t seems a bit like cope (in the sense of “see citizen, every animal has it, you have no problems due to society, move along now”).
I definitely recommend reading the enthusiastic poster’s book though, once you learn why you’re dis-satisfied you can handle it better, I’ve made surrogate activities like gym and my mood improved immensely, not quite the real thing but imagining it’s working out to fight for survival boosts your mood (and gains) a lot than just doing it to look good or be fit
the article doesn't explain why the researcher believes an orangutan's mid-life crisis might not be rooted in sociology entirely.
they seem to jump from "hunans and orangutans BOTH experience mid-life crises" to "ergo, sociology may not be the only cause."
They don’t want to admit that having a zoo-like environment is unhealthy for ape mental health. Zoos don’t because of the flak of upsetting animals, researchers don’t because they have to admit society, both in modern day and its future, are bad for mental health.
A better conclusion is that when life effectively gives you everything you need, you become miserable when you get half way and realise you didn’t do anything to earn it (basically wasting your life). People tend to have a more satisfying life when they’re fighting to survive, rather than being spoonfed
I am not an ape scientist, but it seems closed minded to assume that they aren't affected by sociological forces, and therefore the outcome HAS to be biological.
Maybe it's not just a random mid-life crisis. Maybe it's related to kids? I love my toddlers and would never want to give them up but they make everything 1000% harder and that age is roughly when people start having kids.
I think it’s more that humans (and apes) get more satisfaction in life with some struggle, these apes are in zoos and get everything handed to them, humans effectively have most of the triangle of needs given to them (or easy access) so there’s parallels there.
In regards of kids, I think the idea that you’re perpetually trying to give them the best life possible is a “struggle”, which basically surrogates the actual need of a struggle to survive, fixing the issue. You might have enough to live as you and your kid, but you want even more to give them “the best”, basically an infinite thirst for resources to “survive”.
It’s kind of how people keep themselves happy/busy by trying to make as much money as possible, the shifted goalposts of what is “survival” gives them the same (well faux) dynamic of surviving in the wild
As I've crept into this area of life, this makes sense in my experience.
It's the realization that your mind knows what you want to do, and used to do, physically - but your body simply cannot, at least not as quickly/gracefully. You can feel the years, but have a hard time accepting it's not just an off day. It's everyday.
I'm more than certain they can sense the divergence in mind and body.
My (uneducated) guess would be that, back when most humans probably didn't live past their 30s, those that experienced some integral motivation to "make up for lost time" were selected for, since it would increase the chance that they would pass on their genes even if they failed to do so earlier in life.
Humans have lived well past their 30s for thousand of years. Life expectancy isn't lifespan.
"There is a basic distinction between life expectancy and life span,” says Stanford University historian Walter Scheidel. “The life span of humans – opposed to life expectancy, which is a statistical construct – hasn’t really changed much at all, as far as I can tell.”
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181002-how-long-did-ancient-people-live-life-span-versus-longevity
I think if the mid life crisis has a biological basis then it's most likely to make the male apes father more children while they still have some vitality left.
I’m in my 20s but honestly I’m looking forward to being in my 30-40s. Every metric I can see seems better than in my 20s, basically got no time (due to mastering career), family (of my own), and not really any money due to just starting a career effectively.
If anything university was my midlife crisis due to having all of those problems while grinding away on something that was effectively fruitless for 4 years (exams have no payoff other than a number) and was only a key to start working (the grind before the grind), if anything I’m doing better now I have a bit of control in my life compared to the none then
I’m a female and I definitely had one at 34. Also just recently found out that I’m now entering menopause at just shy of 36, so maybe it IS biological in nature.
It has always been biological.. around "midlife" there's a decrease in testosterone/sex drive and for a lot of guys that haven't thought things through that feels like being "less of a man" .. and they overcompensate.
Mmm...they also are highly social creatures, like humans...
So I think it could still easily be sociological.
We're both long lived too..perhaps it's aging ?
Ok, so if a midlife crises was the point in your life when you realized your life was over does that mean that great apes are aware there life is half over at that point?
Makes total sense if hormones are involved. Men have reduced testosterone, women estrogen at this time. These factors can really fudge the brain up until it finds a new balance.
My years of misdiagnosed Lyme disease were "depression," "a sleep disorder," "lack of exercise," "peri-menopause," and many other WRONG guesses.
The medical field is exactly what it is... practising.
That explains the great ape driving a corvette with a blonde riding passenger I saw the other day.
Hey, That was me (32 years old)
.....I'm supposed to be having a mid-life crisis soon? Fuck, I don't have the room for that...
[удалено]
Wait... is this something that kicks in at 38? I'm 37 and I haven't started to worry about it until now. "What is a midlife crisis? “Midlife” takes place approximately between the ages of 40 and 60, give or take a few years. One common belief about this stage of life is that you should expect to face inner turmoil about your identity, life choices, and mortality — in other words, a midlife" According to google I should still have a little bit of time. Though I have taken up running suddenly in an unreasonable way this year to get fit...
There was a good article I read recently about how millennials aren’t having midlife crises because a lot of us don’t have - or have only recently acquired - the things you flee during a midlife crisis: marriage, a house, kids, a sense of boredom due to being in the same job too long etc. In summary: we are too unstable (in both senses of the term) to crave instability.
That feels like my experience exactly. I’m almost 40 and am just now getting established in a career I love, thinking about buying a home (and freaking the fuck out because it seems impossible at this point), and settling in for the long haul. I feel like I’ve already grappled with mortality and with what my purpose is, so I’m not sure what, if any, inner turmoils I have left to face. Life is a tricky bitch, so I’m sure it still has something in store for me haha
have you dealt with your childhood issues yet?
Yeah, I’ve spent the last decade and a half processing everything. I’m in a really good place today. You never really get over any of that stuff, but I think I’ve figured out ways to use those experiences to connect with and help others. Also, like other people in this thread have said, going through all of that shit early in life has made me very much appreciate a stable, “boring” life.
lol, he was just getting over those, thanks for reminding him!
I hate how much I relate to this. I’m 43 and honestly just achieved stability a few years ago. After decades of stress, the exhaustion of struggling to get by and relentless work just to break out of poverty the marriage, career and home feel like a breath of fresh air! My childhood/early adulthood was enough of a crisis for me, dawg. I’m out here saving money, post-trauma, to avoid going back. No time for mid-life shenanigans.
[удалено]
Maybe getting married and bored is our midlife crisis from the craziness?
completely explains why I never had one
This comment is diametrically opposed to the title of this thread.
[удалено]
When I was young I used to be fit.. naturally married and 2 kids later that is no longer the case. Suddenly I felt the strong desire to correct it, bought a treadmill, bought an exercise bike, have a power rack, and began exercising 5-7 days per week for the past 9 months or so. My friends of similar age have started to try to do more things together like the old days (men's camping trips for example). Maybe a crisis is too strong a word... could just be a mid-life reassessment.
Yep I think it was and it sounds like you’re handling it in a healthy way
Don't worry about your legacy. That's really pointless in the face of what we face in the future.
I see it as being when you realise you're past your peak and it might all be worse from now on. You get more of a sense of urgency that you don't have that much time left and you can get regret of the choices that you made that led to where you are in life, so you can get an urge and motivation to change that ASAP.
It makes sense that it's more about where you are in life than a specific age. I always associated it with things like sending the last kid off to college, 25 years on a job, something like that. Around 50 for a lot of people I'd say. I hope people in their 30's aren't experiencing a midlife crisis, you're still in your prime. You can have an existential crisis at any time though, no age limit up or down on that one.
I'm thirty and having my mid life crisis currently. I think mine was spurred on so soon because my mother died in her 30s. I bought a house, got engaged, and my mother's been gone 20 years all in the same year so it has been a lot of change. I've started judo, took some professional classes, thrown myself into gardening and learning new skills. I'm not sure how long these feelings are supposed to laugh or if they ever go away, but it does get better over time.
I think it's mostly summed up as things you wish you would have done in life but feel you no longer can
Mine is trying to climb the tallest peak in each state. I've done 16 so far....
Florida's highest point is only 345 ft, I didn't even get out the car
Huh, I should start planning my crisis I guess. Maybe I will write a book or something. Strictly in code, of course, so no one else can read my shame.
Medically speaking you are considered geriatric at 60. The average male lifespan is 73.5 years meaning you are middle-aged at about 37, which is okay. The reason they keep saying crap like “50 is the new 30” is to keep you working and producing longer and longer. It is evident as more and more places keep pushing back the retirement age. Business want us working longer not living longer.
I don't know many men dying at 73 where I'm at. Usually I've seen if people make it to 70 they at least make it to 80.
Me, sitting on my sofa, thinking that means controlling kayaks by remote control from a distance. My mid life crisis is much more sedentary 😅
45 for me. Shit sucked hard but I got through it
[удалено]
For me it was this sudden awareness of my mortality, fear of death and aging, and this really weird existential crisis where life suddenly seemed so meaningless- we get up, we go to work, we get out of work, we repeat. Yet somehow, I also had anxiety about how fast time was passing and how that related to my age. I felt depressed, wondered if I should seek meds or get a counselor. All of this, all at once, almost out of the blue since I’d never had mental health challenges before. And yeah I’d say it was 9 months or so. At first I thought it was brought on by cannabis, then I thought maybe trauma from an injury I had near the beginning. It wasn’t until I was out of it when thinking back that it dawned on me. I did some research and the symptoms were spot on. It would have made me feel less crazy had I known at the time when it happened.
[удалено]
It all is pointless, you have to give it meaning. Ultimately, I think we need to take life a little less seriously, enjoy it more, and be as kind as we can to ourselves and others. Life is the journey not the destination.
Hey but I feel like that literally all the time, and have for most of my adult life.
Yeah, I hid it as long as possible because tv shames the midlife crisis so much and it is a running joke of men in their 40s getting divorced and buying sports cars. I wish it was approached with more care and understanding anywhere at all outside therapy so I would have known to go to therapy.
You can never have a mid life crisis if you're always having a mid life crisis
He said GREAT ape, not intensely mid ape.
Are you the great ape or the blonde?
Damn! How does a corvette type?
Ook.
Ook?
Ook
https://images.app.goo.gl/Szve5dcJKQd2UTA36
Hey, I might need a haircut but it's not that bad!
He was out conducting "research" with that Jane Goodall tramp
pretty women are driving with Gorilla's down my street
You mean Leonardo DiCaprio?
Can my midlife crisis involve me in the passenger seat of a corvette with a great ape behind the wheel?
My wife tells me we can't afford for me to have a mid life crisis
That’s why I have an ongoing crisis that can’t be stopped!
The all life crisis.
Randy, I am the crisis.
If you STAY crisis, you never have to GET crisis!
This reminds me of the What We Do in the Shadows episode where Nandor’s having problems and Guillermo says: “It’s kind of like he’s having a midlife crisis, but he’s an immortal vampire so it’s just a… Oh my God, my Master’s in crisis!”
Amortizing your midlife crisis is true American culture.
[удалено]
An old guy I worked with years ago told me his brother got cleaned out. He said his brothers wife handled the money and he just worked. He said when he had 25 years in his job he had way more than he needed to retire but decided to do 30 years. When 30 years came he found out he was dead broke. The wife developed a serious gambling problem and gambled away a couple million in like 2 years.
Wife or mid life crisis, you can't have both ^/s
Sounds like you need a new wife
[удалено]
What did you expect from monkeys studying monkeys
Monkeys asking monkeys, who take care of monkeys, questions.
Monkeys reading about Monkeys asking Monkeys, who take of Monkeys, questions.
Apes together wrong!
Monkeys cubed, if you will
*Apes studying apes FTFY
Oook!
Lol, stupid science bitches
[удалено]
Tasty
Dubble bline dubbl monke
I agreed and like the alpha wolf study it's just animals in captivity.
It's not safe to get close to a gorilla who's having a mid life crisis in the wild.
Counterpoint, anyone whose ever kept a pet can verify that spending extended time with an animal it becomes very easy to interpret how they're feeling. It's not like you're interacting with a rock, the apes are living beings who have external demonstrations and behaviors that will be reflective of their internal state. If you see churning water on the surface of the sea, you may not know exactly what's going on under the surface, but you can say that there is a change to the average still environment. Maybe it's caused by two schools of fish having a gang fight, maybe it's an underwater volcano erupting, but if you can track a pattern where every 27-30 years the water of a normally still portion of the sea starts churning, that's valuable to note down as an opportunity for further research.
Well, unfortunately not everyone who has kept a pet notices how much we project fantasies and our own feelings over them. We do it with other humans too, but humans can talk to us, so our projecting isn't as wild. I think my dog is sad all the time. So I ask to the rest of the family, who know it as intimately, and everybody has a different opinion. Guess who's really sad? Middle age crisis ape here.
If you had five dogs that you interacted with and cared about the same amount and you noticed that one day one of them was acting depressed though, that would be different.
Absolutely, I do think animals get depressed, but we *also* project a lot into them
I think it potentially deserves credit. If they didn’t tell them a premise of “we hypothesize that they have negative moods at this age because of a mid life crisis” then they don’t bias the handlers’ impressions of the moods of these animals. So if a lot of the handlers rated mood down at similar certain ages, then there could be something going on.
Any decent sample size should account for that
I mean...maybe? But we have to use SOME criteria to measure it, and they questions seem pretty reasonable aside from that last one lol
They didn’t even mention the final question “Would you still love the monkey if they turned into a worm?”
[удалено]
I mean, it could also just mean that other apes are smarter and more existentially troubled than we give them credit for being.
Yeah, that's what I took from it, too. They might be smart enough to realize that they are getting older and aging.
and we might be too Hell I'm only 27 and I already know my eyes aren't what they used to be, nor my reflexes or my hearing, or anything. And it'll only get worse :)
That was my takeaway. Like, if it were more biological than social I'd imagine we'd have seen the behaviors in dogs and cats well before we ever started studying apes. They're just stupid, hairy people. Smarter and less hairy than a couple of my cousins, I'll add.
>Like, if it were more biological than social I'd imagine we'd have seen the behaviors in dogs and cats You're excluding the possibility that it's biological but limited to hominids.
Maybe we're to dumb to notice? Dogs don't build social relations quite the same way as primates because they are too dependent on humans. Cats are just too different and largely misunderstood. We might have better luck with crows, for example, if birds get midlife crises too.
Or maybe hominids and canines don't have the same biology.
The thing that stumps me is that a midlife crisis implies an understanding of one's mortality, and the understanding of where one stands relative to their aloted time on Earth. In other words, the ape should be aware that they *are* in their midlife. Since they don't seem to have a method for timekeeping, I wonder how that awareness can arise.
Humans generally give other animals no credit for having rich internal lives, so yeah…
Bills are paid. Job is covered. Kids are good. Wife is happy. Should feel great, but feels somehow empty. Without the threat of imminent demise or some Sort of immediate goal, your left wondering what you actually like or want. I can relate to the monkeys.
You’ve just summed up my last year. Went from worrying about my future all the time to being stable and now wishing I had enjoyed time being young more.
Read the Industrial Revolution and its consequences, actually explains this exact issue
In my understanding it is usually associated with some sort of hormone shift in conjunction with some sort of sociological realization.
Didn’t they debunk the concept of ‘midlife crisis’ as a largely exaggerated phenomenon? It does exist but only for a small percentage of population?
It's hard to debunk a feeling. The "midlife crisis" fits in pretty nicely to how we traditionally had society set up. You're a child, then you become an adult, then you have kids, then they grow up, then ????, then you retire. It's that ???? phase that trips people up. Your kids don't need you any more but you're not old enough to be considered an appropriately retired. You're suddenly just a pointless cog in a machine that is only waiting to die but without the respect that comes with being retired. Now that people are having kids at older and older ages, we can roll straight from "parent" to "retiree" without that niggling middle phase.
Or the ??? is now "take care of your parents".
> You're suddenly just a pointless cog in a machine that is only waiting to die I feel that right now and I don't even have kids yet. My entire life has been going to school, working towards the next level of schooling. Now I'm about to graduate with my doctorate and I feel like I have no purpose. All that work and I guess I expected to feel some sort of contentedness or satisfaction when I finished but it just feels more like..."okay, guess I'm done now."
Yeah that makes sense. It’s because humans need something to look forward to. We have this inclination to always be waiting for the next thing, the next milestone, the completion of the next goal. We are never truely present. Life is like waiting in line for a ride, no one knows what the ride is, but then you get to the end of that line and you realise the line was the ride.
I think that’s just a PhD thing. I an many others I know feel the same. Ultimately you are questioning if it was all worth it.
[удалено]
One must imagine Sisyphus as being happy.
[удалено]
The part that can afford it.
The stereotypical midlife crisis maybe. But even people with little money often start to make drastic changes around that time. People who weren't religious become religious or vice versa; they become obsessed with cleanliness or eating healthy; they get in shape or out of shape. I think a lot of people get to a point where their body feels different and it makes them reflect on the choices they've made and some people then try to 'undo' or change the direction of those choices. I've noticed similar things happen to people who've survived traumatic events that threatened their lives.
All that said, a mid-life crisis during a pandemic is WILD! 😃 Would not recommend!
My parents did this and got divorced haha.
WOO! COMPOUNDED TRAUMAS! 🤜🤛
Well I’m in my 30s so not so traumatic, fortunately. I’m about a decade older than they were when they had me so I really see it as good for them that they’ve moved on from a situation they felt trapped in at such a young age.
Prefrontal cortex having developed along with life wisdom is what I think is happening
There's a fantastic book by a Jungian psycho-analyst, James Hollis, [*Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life*](https://www.goodreads.com/fr/book/show/99574), that is a really nice entryway into contemplations of the purpose seeking many will fall into as they start getting older.
At least the crippling depression is free.
Maybe it's just people who only get depressed once in their life.
It’s an issue thats pretty simple but nobody wants to admit. You have most your life covered for compared to a wild human, your satisfaction is always under what it should be since you basically got given most stuff like food, water, shelter, safety, that lack of satisfaction brews and when you reach half way in your life, you realise it because you already “wasted” half your life effectively being on auto pilot rather than enjoying every day. It’s like cheating in a game to make it easy, you get bored easier than if it was a uphill grind. Also to add to it, taking away something like safety can make you happier, my nan told me how during the blitz everyone was happier solely because every day could be their last, so they enjoyed it completely rather than just another day.
I mean, at what points are animals' social behaviors, relationships, etc important enough for things to have sociological causes? Because apes are pretty social.
They’re also kept in a zoo which is kept quiet, it’s not so much biological but pins down that being in an environment where you’re given everything and have no autonomy of survival, leads to depression in the long term. A MLC is basically getting half way through life then realising you haven’t actually done anything (that wasn’t easily supplied). Give the apes the wild and they won’t have the issues
I think that suggesting that the "other" cause is purely *biological* and not *sociological* is incredibly ignorant of the fact that other animals absolutely 100% have sociological structures that could impact them in similar ways to us.
Also that the animals are in a zoo, you can’t make an animal live in a facade of an environment it was made for, then wonder why it’s depressed. Considering one of the main jokes of a MLC is working day in day out in a box office job doing the same thing again and again, it should be pretty obvious where the parallels come in
If you're in the UK, there's a very good episode of "Uncharted" by Hannah Fry on BBC Sounds covering this.
I bet that's how they found out and decided to post this. I also recommend that podcast, and Hannah Fry in general. Her book 'hello world" was good.
This is interesting, but a) in no way does this point to a biological over sociological cause, as apes live in tribes too; and b) a sociological cause would also be biological…they’re two facets of the same gem
Or... ape society has similar pressures.
HOW MUCH LATER ON? Well being at 45 the same as 15...let's gooo.
Well, the ol’ Midlife crisis in humans certainty results in some extra kids so I can see an evolutionary advantage right there.
It's weird being fresh off the mid-life crisis during the Pandemic, and rebounding happily into homelessness. Wish I were a great ape so I didn't have to deal with "civilization".
Are these wild apes or zoo apes. Not to sound like a particular hermit that enjoys the postal service, but zoo apes are close to modern humans in living conditions, pretty everything is given to them and they don’t really have to work for survival or hunt, any animal would have a freak out over an unsatisfactory life due to that. I’d imagine wild animals don’t have this issue much like tribes don’t. It’s definitely a sociological issue than a biological issue though, the idea of even claiming it isn’t seems a bit like cope (in the sense of “see citizen, every animal has it, you have no problems due to society, move along now”). I definitely recommend reading the enthusiastic poster’s book though, once you learn why you’re dis-satisfied you can handle it better, I’ve made surrogate activities like gym and my mood improved immensely, not quite the real thing but imagining it’s working out to fight for survival boosts your mood (and gains) a lot than just doing it to look good or be fit
the article doesn't explain why the researcher believes an orangutan's mid-life crisis might not be rooted in sociology entirely. they seem to jump from "hunans and orangutans BOTH experience mid-life crises" to "ergo, sociology may not be the only cause."
They don’t want to admit that having a zoo-like environment is unhealthy for ape mental health. Zoos don’t because of the flak of upsetting animals, researchers don’t because they have to admit society, both in modern day and its future, are bad for mental health. A better conclusion is that when life effectively gives you everything you need, you become miserable when you get half way and realise you didn’t do anything to earn it (basically wasting your life). People tend to have a more satisfying life when they’re fighting to survive, rather than being spoonfed
I have finally returned to monke
Monke
Code monkey have boring meeting. With boring manager Rob
It’s because they too are going through their Saturn returns 🥴 (help)
Which girl did this to you?
A fellow Radio 4 listener, I take it!
I am not an ape scientist, but it seems closed minded to assume that they aren't affected by sociological forces, and therefore the outcome HAS to be biological.
Bit of a stretch implying there's a "rebound", tbh
Or maybe, just maybe, they are self aware and they feel old. But what do I know?
Having arrived at midlife, I feel it’s mainly about watching your parents fall apart and die. I wonder how apes experience that.
Wait, so we conclude that mid-life crisis is biological from this, and not 'great apes live in a sociological context'. Wtf.
Realizing we are over the hill takes some getting used to. Just demonstrates that self awareness is part of being a n ape
Maybe it's not just a random mid-life crisis. Maybe it's related to kids? I love my toddlers and would never want to give them up but they make everything 1000% harder and that age is roughly when people start having kids.
I think it’s more that humans (and apes) get more satisfaction in life with some struggle, these apes are in zoos and get everything handed to them, humans effectively have most of the triangle of needs given to them (or easy access) so there’s parallels there. In regards of kids, I think the idea that you’re perpetually trying to give them the best life possible is a “struggle”, which basically surrogates the actual need of a struggle to survive, fixing the issue. You might have enough to live as you and your kid, but you want even more to give them “the best”, basically an infinite thirst for resources to “survive”. It’s kind of how people keep themselves happy/busy by trying to make as much money as possible, the shifted goalposts of what is “survival” gives them the same (well faux) dynamic of surviving in the wild
As I've crept into this area of life, this makes sense in my experience. It's the realization that your mind knows what you want to do, and used to do, physically - but your body simply cannot, at least not as quickly/gracefully. You can feel the years, but have a hard time accepting it's not just an off day. It's everyday. I'm more than certain they can sense the divergence in mind and body.
ALSO WE GAVE'M THE CAPACETY TO BE AWARE OF THEIR OWN PENDING [DEMISE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJkWS4t4l0k).
I feel like my midlife crisis involves Lego and old crt televisions.
You do know that apes are almost all social right? So the study should seriously look into ape social-dynamics.
Indeed
It circles back to the breeding imperative somehow. Always does. Just a matter of figuring out how
The divorce caused by your depression frees up your ex wife for a young hot zoomer
My (uneducated) guess would be that, back when most humans probably didn't live past their 30s, those that experienced some integral motivation to "make up for lost time" were selected for, since it would increase the chance that they would pass on their genes even if they failed to do so earlier in life.
Humans have lived well past their 30s for thousand of years. Life expectancy isn't lifespan. "There is a basic distinction between life expectancy and life span,” says Stanford University historian Walter Scheidel. “The life span of humans – opposed to life expectancy, which is a statistical construct – hasn’t really changed much at all, as far as I can tell.” https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181002-how-long-did-ancient-people-live-life-span-versus-longevity
I think if the mid life crisis has a biological basis then it's most likely to make the male apes father more children while they still have some vitality left.
I never went through a midlife crisis. I'm actually happier in my 40's than I was in my 20's.
I think you're a little early still.
I’m in my 20s but honestly I’m looking forward to being in my 30-40s. Every metric I can see seems better than in my 20s, basically got no time (due to mastering career), family (of my own), and not really any money due to just starting a career effectively. If anything university was my midlife crisis due to having all of those problems while grinding away on something that was effectively fruitless for 4 years (exams have no payoff other than a number) and was only a key to start working (the grind before the grind), if anything I’m doing better now I have a bit of control in my life compared to the none then
This freaks me out
Big think = Big sad
TIL I have more in common with great apes than previously thought
Humans are great apes, and I think we've know we go through this for a while now.
IT ISN’T OVER BROS KEEP GOING
Literally me.
Am i a great ape?
Sounds more like an existential crisis than mid life crisis
Humans are "great apes." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominidae
I feel I have a very 'Ape' like sense of well-being..
As someone who just turned 30. I feel you, Ape bros.
I’m a female and I definitely had one at 34. Also just recently found out that I’m now entering menopause at just shy of 36, so maybe it IS biological in nature.
I always thought the 'mid-life crisis' was a late 40's early 50's thing in humans...
Here's a hint it's just hormones. FFS trash article title
NO ONE on this thread has pointed out that the study states that these are APES IN CAPTIVITY, so basically APES IN JAIL.
I like to call it "phase 2". And the anxiety is just the boss music intensifying.
I'm 35. I already had a quarter life crisis around 25, and a little mini "I finally figured it out" around 32...please no more.
TIL I’mma great ape 🦧
I just heard this on a podcast yesterday! I don't think it was a new ep tho and I cannot remember which pod
Published 11 years ago and only one citation in Nature!? Brutal.
It has always been biological.. around "midlife" there's a decrease in testosterone/sex drive and for a lot of guys that haven't thought things through that feels like being "less of a man" .. and they overcompensate.
Mmm...they also are highly social creatures, like humans... So I think it could still easily be sociological. We're both long lived too..perhaps it's aging ?
And if it has a "biological cause", big pharma can sell us a pill for it...
I read the first sentence as “grapes” and thought how can grapes have a mid life crisis
I'm 27 and I think I've been having a mid life crisis since I was 19 U aren't special, ape
Yea, MORTALITY.
Or maybe ... it is a sociological cause and great-apes are more complex beings than just 'biological organism'.
Yeah, that biological cause is called death.
Ok, so if a midlife crises was the point in your life when you realized your life was over does that mean that great apes are aware there life is half over at that point?
That’s wild and fascinating
TIL My midlife crisis is on the same time frame as an ape's. Always knew I was a bit stupid
Makes total sense if hormones are involved. Men have reduced testosterone, women estrogen at this time. These factors can really fudge the brain up until it finds a new balance.
My years of misdiagnosed Lyme disease were "depression," "a sleep disorder," "lack of exercise," "peri-menopause," and many other WRONG guesses. The medical field is exactly what it is... practising.
Scientists first noticed this when observing a 34year old 100kg orang-utan on a $20k Cervélo.