Midlife Crisis
Shorthand for trying
to put the clock back and to be
as in your twenties and to flee
all thoughts of dying,
midlife crisis
puts into new perspective work,
enabling you to be a jerk,
not Dionysus.
Richard A. Friedman, a professor of psychiatry at Cornell University, writes about the midlife crisis in the Science Times of ther NY, January 15,2008 (“Crisis? Maybe He’s a Narcissistic Jerk”) :
With the possible exception of “the dog ate my homework, ” there is no handier excuse for human misbehavior than the midlife crisis. Popularly viewed as a unique developmental birthright of the human species, it supposedly strikes when most of us have finally figured ourselves out — only to discover that we have lost our youth and mortality is on the horizon. No doubt about it, life in the middle ages can be challenging. (Full disclosure: I’m 51.) What with the first signs of physical decline and the questions and doubts about one’s personal and professional accomplishments, it is a wonder that most of us survive. Not everyone is so lucky; some find themselves seized by a seemingly irresistible impulse to do something dramatic, even foolish. Everything, it appears, is fair game for a midlife crisis: one’s job, spouse, lover — you name it. I recently heard about a severe case from a patient whose husband of nearly 30 years abruptly told her that he “felt stalled and not self-actualized” and began his search for self-knowledge in the arms of another woman. It was not that her husband no longer loved her, she said he told her; he just did not find the relationship exciting anymore. “Maybe it’s a midlife crisis, ” she said, then added derisively, “Whatever that is.” Outraged and curious, she followed him one afternoon and was shocked to discover that her husband’s girlfriend was essentially a younger clone of herself, right down to her haircut and her taste in clothes. It doesn’t take a psychoanalyst to see that her husband wanted to turn back the clock and start over. But this hardly deserves the dignity of a label like “midlife crisis.” It sounds more like a search for novelty and thrill than for self-knowledge. In fact, the more I learned about her husband, it became clear that he had always been a self-centered guy who fretted about his lost vigor and was acutely sensitive to disappointment. This was a garden-variety case of a middle-aged narcissist grappling with the biggest insult he had ever faced: getting older. But you have to admit that “I’m having a midlife crisis” sounds a lot better than “I’m a narcissistic jerk having a meltdown.”
© 2008 Gershon Hepner 1/15/08
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Backside Of Thirty
They say when you reach
the backside of thirty;
a midlife crisis looms in the air.
Midlife crisis!
Now what the hell is that?
Is it like the flu,
or a summer cold?
If it is, then I had mine,
When I got married
So many years ago.
So what happens?
When you reach the backside of forty.
Is it another midlife crisis,
or are you over the hill there?
Don’t ask me, I don’t know.
A government official once told me,
At the age of forty,
I was too far gone for repair.
That I was on the downward stretch.
Well here I am at sixty two,
and I’ve seen the backside of fifty.
But who really cares?
Your as young as you feel,
and I still feel like a little kid.
I go away at weekend
and play cowboys and Indians,
but in my case it is vicars and Indians
that’s why they call me Dodgy Dave.
Who cares if I’m a blatant fool,
I’m enjoying my life while I got it.
My advise to you,
is when you hit the backside of thirty,
you do the same as I do.
Act a little crazy,
and enjoy everyday you got.
13 June 2007
poem by David Harris
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Midlife Crisis
Go on and wring my neck
Like when a rag gets wet
A little discipline
For my pet genius
My head is like a lettuce
Go on and dig your thumbs in
I cannot stop giving
Im thirty-something
Sense of security
Like pockets jingling
Midlife crisis
Suck ingenuity
Down through the family tree
Youre perfect, yes, its true
But without me youre only you
Your menstruating heart
It aint bleeding enough for two
Its a midlife crisis...
What an inheritance
The salt and the kleenex
Morbid self attention
Bending my pinky back
A little discipline
A donor by habit
A little discipline
Rent an opinion
Sense of security
Holding blunt instrument
Im a perfectionist
And perfect is a skinned knee
Youre perfect, yes, its true
But without me youre only you
Your menstruating heart
It aint bleeding enough for two
Its a midlife crisis...............
song performed by by Faith No More
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Middle Age
Rictameter:
Syllable count
two-four-six-eight-ten
and reverse.
'Crisis'
sad occasion
love loosing its allure
two souls led into temptation
romance neglected as never before.
wedding rings are of no avail
what an uhappy tale
in the midlife
'Crisis'
poem by Joyce Hemsley
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You know, let a few years go by until I hit my midlife crisis. Then that can be documented on film.
quote by Claire Danes
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Turn your midlife crisis to your own advantage by making it a time for renewal of your body and mind, rather than stand by helplessly and watch them decline.
quote by Jane E. Brody
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I think midlife crisis is just a point where people's careers have reached some plateau and they have to reflect on their personal relationships.
quote by Bill Murray
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Hostage Crisis
Who is a hostage
What is the crisis
Who is there
To solve this.
I am here
In this world
And I am in crisis
It is your world
It is you
Who solve my crisis.
The crisis of
Identification
The crisis of
Beautification
The crisis of
Unification
The crisis of
Liberation.
poem by Gajanan Mishra
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It is popular to call it a crisis of the Western world. It is in fact a crisis of the whole world. Communism, which claims to be a solution of the crisis, is itself a symptom and an irritant of the crisis.
quote by Whittaker Chambers
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Make The Most Of Midlife
if you wait about what midlife
has to offer
you become a loser
because you expect an offering of such age
midlife is an age of giving
of making other people's dreams come true
make the most of it
let others grow let others have their own way
watch them
bloom
watch them
find their destinies
watch them
laugh
and then you are
what you want to be
a kingmaker
a dream weaver
a happy person
simply watching time go by.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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A question of time
When is midlife?
If one lives to 100
then 50 is midpoint
70? then 35 is it
Does age cause spirituality?
If so, then why?
Death comes at any age
or at any time
Why think about death
when it can take you
anytime or anywhere?
Choose your battles
even with death
decide your own fate
rather than leave it
up to the cosmic lottery
It is possible to cheat death
depending on what you think
is midlife.
poem by Samael Wolf
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Crisis King
If youre inclined to complain
It doesnt matter, hes got greater pain
Any crisis takes its toll
Then hell get down, let the bad times roll
Youll never go down fighting
Youll just go down
The crisis king is mighty
In a crisis showdown
The sole provision he needs to live
Is what he can take, hes got nothing
To give
Youll never go down fighting
Youll just go down
The crisis king is mighty
In a crisis showdown
song performed by by Helmet
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Identity Crisis!
When born, I was called “baby”
And later they called me “Abby”
Within 5 years they called me “student”
And for 7 years, like that I spent
Then they called me “teen”
I loved it and felt like a queen
Then I was called “woman”
And those times, were the best
Then some one tied a knot and called me “wife”
I hated those times, it was horrible and gross
In years I became “mother”
It was beautiful but tough
Then being called “grandma”
My times got better and better
Then at last I was called “old”
And my body was frail and cold
All this time I wondered,
Where my identity has gone
Some where in the middle, I had lost it
Through the ages, I had a crisis
An identity crisis to say!
DECEMBER 23,2008
poem by Sania Harris
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Stronger, Faster, Younger
Stronger, Faster, Younger.
In my prime of life.
No use for strife.
More need for a wife.
Stronger, Faster, Younger.
When the day was long.
Not knowing right from wrong.
Singing a working mans song.
Stronger, Faster, Younger.
My midlife crisis will pass.
Winter brown on dead grass.
Retirement just out of grasp.
Weaker, Slower, Older.
I was given a slip today.
More so to just go away.
Silver hair a dull grey.
Weaker, Slower, Older.
No more working mans hunger.
Replaced like lightning to thunder.
By someone Stronger, Faster, Younger.
poem by Gulliver Gimble
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Although this crisis in some ways started in the United States, it is a global crisis. We bear a substantial share of the responsibility for what has happened, but factors that made the crisis so acute and so difficult to contain lie in a broader set of global forces that built up in the years before the start of our current troubles.
quote by Timothy Geithner
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Always Leaving Crisis
Life it seems is a crisis from the day that I was born
I came out flogging and crying on that long ago "who am I" morn!
I clung so tight to my Mama, but soon she sent me away
I heard the school bell ringing! A crisis for me that day!
The years, I recall, flew swiftly, where do I go from here?
A crisis, my graduation. Commencement day brings fear!
I don't understand where I'm going, another crisis for sure
I must find my way and purpose, the way to live and endure!
I'm always leaving, leaving, always searching to find
Where am I going? I wonder? I leave my childhood behind!
I leave all my teen years behind me. The past is the past is the past
One crisis after another, and all of them come so fast!
Then there was the crisis that really made me smile
A real big one for you as well, you walked me down the aisle!
I left my Mama and Daddy to spend a lifetime with you
Now comes a double crisis! We're leaving, oh what can we do!
I'm not sure when we are going, all I know it is true
I'm leaving this world behind me, and my dear, you are leaving, too!
Life has been a challenge, it seems we are always leaving!
Doors that close, doors that open, a pattern that's ever weaving!
Now at the end of our journey, we'll leave it all and find
The great and the small must leave it all, this is the way it's designed!
We'll trust our great Creator who has seen us through our strife
He'll never leave or forsake us! He will give us Eternal Life!
poem by Thelma Evelyn Jones
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The human crisis is always a crisis of understanding: what we genuinely understand we can do.
quote by Raymond Williams
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The war and terrorism in the Middle East, the crisis of leadership in many of the oil-supply countries in the developing world, the crisis of global warming - all these are very clearly tied to energy.
quote by Julia Louis Dreyfus
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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World Crisis
Over 46 million abortions per year and,
This sin has increased among the human;
All in a day's work and of the human crisis!
Noah begot three sons and,
We all do fall with our sins;
But the world crisis cannot be numbered.
Of aborted foetus and our history,
And behind close doors with our footprints;
But beware of the false prophets.
Thievery and fonication are part of us and,
Our sins are repeated over and over again!
With aborted body parts for sale,
But where are the surgical tongs?
Fear, anger and sadness;
We have violated the moral code;
And the world crisis does lie with us today.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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Is Man A Winner Or A Loser?
Woman has a poof that the child is hers;
Man has no such proof to claim on the child.
She is cool with the child as identity.
He is desperate for his identity.
Identity crisis has disturbed him.
He invented marriage and chained woman.
He imposed chastity to mark his kids
And introduced patriarchal system.
Identity crisis has troubled him.
He assumed control over women.
He retained the progeny in his name
And made concubines to silence woman.
Identity crisis has worried him.
He bottled woman's skill and built up his.
He grew to be a Scholar. Sculptor and Poet
And assigned to woman the entertaining.
Identity crisis has bothered him.
He treated woman as her property.
He acquired family unfailingly
And labourd for its upkeep and status.
Identity crisis has bored him.
Water as she is, man could not cut her.
Tired of heat outside, man needed a shade
And sheltered himself in woman's coolness.
Woman treated man with due sympathy
With no fight with him for identity.
Her child is enough for her identity.
She helped him to anchor himself in her.
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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My country is in the grips of a major economic crisis. This is causing dramatic consequences for the very existence of Polish families. A permanent economic crisis in Poland may also have serious repercussions for Europe. Thus, Poland ought to be helped and deserves help.
quote by Lech Walesa
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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