The Muddle in the Middle

In this issue: Muddling in the Middle

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The Middle Muddle

I’ve been brooding a lot lately.

It’s not anything new, exactly.

Brooding is inherent to living the life I’ve had, to date.

Constant change, balancing art with business and with family.

As many (most?) of us do somewhere in middle age.

Don’t “40’s the new 20” me.

Not sure if it’s turning 40 that’s bringing this on.

Maybe it’s the day job or coming to an office 5 days a week after working remotely for 3 years (and a few more before that gig).

Business is slow.

People are slow to reply.

Many have just dropped off the map completely.

The Inner Cheerleader is taking a break too, it seems.

Truth be told, I’ve even thought about closing down this newsletter, a few times.

And yet, writing just bottles up all the emotions and prevents them from being processed.

So, here we are, for the time being.

Muddling through the middle.

Middle of the (secular) year.

Middle of the searing summer.

Mid-life, also, inevitably.

And the muddle ain’t pretty some days.

All sorts of thoughts creep in.

One notices small signs of aging.

Dry skin, slightly less sharp memory and so on.

Much less angst and sturm und drang, but nevertheless some is always there, just behind the scenes.

Not because of comparison, G-d forbid.

Not because life is bad, G-d forbid.

It’s actually never been better, in certain ways.

But inevitably, because one feels one’s debt against one’s potential creeping up.

A sort of sense of one’s own mediocrity diluting one’s worldview, work ethic, etc.

In simpler terms, it feels as if I should be doing more, pushing myself more, bringing in more money, reaching out to more people, experimenting more, writing more.

I used to do more, I used to hustle faster. So on and so forth.

It’s a sort of malaise with an overactive mind in a slow season.

But I would be amiss if I didn’t mention one other thing in the background of all this.

In the last 2-3 weeks, I’ve been reading Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann, as I mentioned previously.

The story turns from the seemingly inevitable rise of the family to its seemingly inevitable fall and decay.

Perfectly respectable upper-class merchants descend into less than respectable marriages, business deals, over-indulgences and creature comforts.

Re-reading a book after 25 years dredges up the differences in oneself, as seen through the lens of character association.

Whereas at 15, I was associating myself with the younger versions of each character, more young, refined, impressionable…

Now, I can’t help but gravitate toward the impressions of he 42 year-old Thomas Buddenbrook, patriarch, senator and head of his family firm.

On the 100th anniversary of his august family firm’s founding, he is inundated with telegrams, family, townspeople, well-wishers from everywhere.

And he can’t help but think how empty and vain and inconsequential all this is.

He gets short with his only son, who has prepared a poem for recitation, but can’t finish more than one line before crying from neurasthenia.

The giant house he’s built, his position as senator, philanthropist, businessman.

A stinging remark from his brother years earlier, that “all businessmen are swindlers” comes back to him as a sort of inherent truth, after all.

Thomas collapses in exhaustion in an empty room, while a band plays in his foyer, with hundreds gathered to regale him for his firm’s long record.

Sure, being 42 in 1868 would have made him almost an old man (smoking clearly didn’t help matters), in contrast to the much longer life expectancy today.

But that isn’t the point.

The markers of success often arrive after the fact of actual success, often looking backwards and lack the joy they’re meant to convey.

Everything is temporary, both the joys and nadirs.

This year has had much of both.

A friend I just spoke to had his career cut short because he was straight-up blacklisted in his industry (he’s checked, it’s really a thing) for being a white male.

Even as he was sulking for a couple months, he apparently started his own business and has closed $700K in deals.

He admitted to me that “chasing prestige was bullshit.”

The shitty muddle in the middle will pass.

There will be an upswing again soon, with G-d’s help.

If we wait and see and hope, it will come at an undetermined date, likely much later.

If we muddle on despite the bad weather in our heads and lives, we continue creating facts on the ground.

Some write the shit out of their system to jumpstart things.

Some work it out in the gym or on the trail.

Some take time off and get some f-ing sleep.

Some change their diet, change their job, get a life-changing project or opportunity.

The gold is in the follow-up, any half-decent salesperson will tell you.

So follow up!

The muddle isn’t glorious. It’s not even particularly desirable.

There’s no need to glamorize failure, just as it’s foolish to glamorize success.

Both are seasons, often very short ones.

The key is not to get stuck.

But if you do, call the tow truck, if you have to.

Call a friend.

See your rabbi.

Journal it out.

Take a walk.

Work out at the gym.

Have a laugh with your friends at work.

Take your kid(s) climbing or hiking or to a pastry shop.

Jolt yourself out of the trench into No-Man’s Land.

It’s not a world war, but it is a war inside, with real consequences.

Report back on what you find there 🙂 

Have a blessed rest of the week, my friends!