Mid-Something Crisis…

I have been facing a strange crisis in life! I would not call it mid-life crisis since I do not exhibit any of the clichés of it like impatience, random bouts attraction to the opposite sex or listening to traumatic songs from before my birth in search for a meaning to life. I would in fact be rather disappointed if I have reached mid-life since it would be extremely depressing to think that my life span is all but three scores. The key attribute of this phase that I am in is one of complete chaos when it comes to making a decision. And this is not really about decision making in the short term. Those are decisions that come fairly easily to me since most of these decisions that are really short term are related to my work and my dislike for what I do for a living makes the decision process fairly simple to make objective display of. It’s the more important stuff.

This started some weeks back when I decided that I need to take a particular interest in over qualifying myself and I should delve further into education. Following this realization, the hemisphere of the brain that drives spending habits drove me to buy books and utilities that it deemed fit towards achieving this end objective. I think the ill-conceived notion that education was the answer to all my woes was born from some unknown desire to relive a student life with all the gifts of irresponsibility and randomness that come with it. I started in right earnest and then realized that studying for the pre-qualifying examination was proving to be more difficult than usual. Being an electrical engineer, I sometimes pride myself on the ability to understand mathematics at an above average level of proficiency. After working for six long years I was dealt the harshest blow when simplistic number theory problems came at me like airborne firecrackers – I had almost forgotten the most basic of mathematical tables and multiplicity rules, which at one time were easy to remember. Not to be daunted, I wrote and rewrote rules and thumb rules hoping that somehow my fingers would write itself into my brain once again. After writing for about three pages, I realized that I had lost touch with the art of writing. It was easier to type. And the combined fireballs of mathematical incompetency and inability to write for 15 minutes without feeling numb in my upper extremities led me to give up that pursuit.

My next pursuit was triggered when my sister-in-law shared a song that had been thumping at many hearts and seemed to be quite the rave these days. It was indeed a good song all in all. I could not quite understand much of the lyrics at first and then when Metro Lyrics finally came to my aid, I could not understand the meaning of the lyrics. Basically, combined with a fairly unusual tune, made for a good song – you did not have to spend an iota of attention span on listening while the song played. But I realized that I was very profoundly outdated in terms of my knowledge of contemporary popular music. So, having expensively failed at re-educating myself, I thought it might be a good idea to catch up on popular music. At least I would not behave like a Martian when in discussion with the young people of the 21st century. I am increasingly aware that these days the intellectual quantum of an educated discussion was limited to popular music, reality shows and the gargantuan stupidity of soap operas. And with the handholding of You Tube, I ventured into updating my knowledge of music before the harsh reality struck me - almost all music was full of lyrics that I could not decipher without lyrics-aid and made even lesser sense when you looked for a meaning. And after a two week effort to this end I realized that I was still humming Pet Shop Boys and Beatles in the shower. So, as suddenly as my You Tube streaming data consumption had gone up, it came down.

Following this I decided, oddly enough, that I should learn computer programming. This eager misadventure came from some movies I must have watched and half liked. My thought was that all programming was probably similar in nature and having learnt GW Basic and COBOL sometime in the last millennium, it should be a rather small hill to climb. So, driven by my spend hemisphere, I made an investment in some purchases (the details will embarrass me even more than it embarrasses me to write about this sever mistake) and started in the right earnest with some books (bibles of …. kind of books). It is funny how base religion has become with bibles for almost anything waiting at the end of a Google search. And, oh boy, had I underestimated how far the world has come since GW Basic and basic COBOL. Before I finished the introduction on one of these bibles, I decided that this was a mountain I would not climb in this life.

And the list is growing with every few weeks bringing a new interest area that looks interesting to start with but the pace at which it loses luster is alarming. I am not able to decide, ladies and gentlemen, what I want to do with my life next and this is extremely bothersome since age is not being any kinder with the passing day. From the banal reading books to making ambitious business plans, I seem to have travelled the distance and back and forward again and I somehow am reminded that I have the attention span the size of a peanut. I am in the middle of a kaleidoscope with the patterns and colors changing around me continuously and my mind seems to be startled by the fact that there is so little that has been done and the possibilities are seemingly and discouragingly endless. It definitely is not mid-life but that particular something that I am stuck in is elusive. My wife keeps telling me that I am growing old and it has actually began to embarrass me every time I look at the mirror – white hair strands, wrinkles, potbelly and everything. Baz Luhrmann notwithstanding, this mid-something crisis is becoming quite a hurdle to deal with and answers are not coming easy.