The Next Generation

I popped out to my local shopping mall this weekend to buy the latest set of Magic: The Gathering cards. I was all excited until I arrived and was immediately overwhelmed by the mountains of Christmas merch on display. I love the festive season as much as the next person, but I’m not quite ready for it to start, and I very much object to being told when to start getting excited about it all. My generation was able to resist Christmas until at least December. I’m not the bah humbug type, but I really don’t like all this commercial creep…

Perhaps, however, I’m just being miserable because my mid-life crisis is about to kick in? I’ve been waiting for the signs of a crisis for the best part of a decade since turning 40. I’ve had the occasional urge to buy a sports car, upgrade my wardrobe and treat myself to an unnecessarily expensive new driver for my golf bag. But so far, I’ve managed to resist without too much trouble.

But then, I’ve also been thinking that as this generation’s lifespans have been getting longer, perhaps the median mid-life crisis point, unlike the Christmas season, has been creeping later?  That would make sense to me, and it aligns with some of the happiness research I’ve been reading, which speaks to a U-curve of happiness that dips around the age of 50 before ramping back towards a euphoric finale – all being well of course. I’m 48 now, so perhaps I really am almost there, at the turn, best days ahead.

Alternatively, and reasonably, this little downward spiral may have been triggered by Patrick Stewart’s passing this week (aka Captain Jean-Luc Picard), comfortably my favourite Star Trek captain. I’ve spent much of my life looking up to Picard and his embodiment of compassionate leadership and moral courage. He was the sort of leader (albeit fictional) I always hoped to become, or would want to serve under. I suppose now I’ll have to find myself a new hero (or get myself a Paramount+ subscription).

I’ve also taken some solace from the fact that Stewart was about my age when he first appeared as Captain of the USS Enterprise. While I might be contemplating the delayed onset of a mid-life crisis, he was embarking on what would become one of the defining roles of his career. I guess there’s something reassuring in that. And just maybe, like Picard, all my best days are still ahead of me.

It does make you wonder how many of life’s best adventures begin just when you think you should be winding down. We’re often encouraged to think of life as a series of milestones, with the best stuff somehow front-loaded: education, careers, achievement, family, and then, presumably, a gradual winding down. But perhaps that’s not quite how it works. The trick might simply be not to spend too much time worrying about what comes next, or assuming that we should have everything figured out by the time we’re 40, 50 or even 60. Perhaps my generation isn’t quite ready to make way for the next one just yet.

Retail therapy, of course, is a delightful and powerful tonic. And because I refuse to succumb to buying more Christmas lights, I decided to sink $400 into the latest set of Magic: The Gathering cards instead. My buyer’s remorse doesn’t usually kick in for at least an hour. And even then, as I said to my other half when I got back in, aren’t there worse ways to fund a (pre) mid-life crisis?

These are collectable cards, I tell her. They’re an investment. I’m almost certain they’ll increase in value, I say.

Although, given what I’ve spent, I suspect they’ll need to appreciate considerably before I can flip them to buy that sports car.