(A couple of months ago, I started to write an email to my classmates after one of us passed on recently. I never finished it and sent it out. Yesterday I re-wrote it and decided to post it here.)
Halftime Adjustment
Forty, most of us have crossed that threshold for a few years now. With the recent passing of xy, and zlq’s death back in 2002, one is made painfully aware of one’s own mortality, the tenuous nature of life itself. Ageing makes people sentimental, among other signs of losing fortitude. Yet forty is such an incongruous age: physically this well oiled machine called human body starts to sputter. Despite the progress in medical science in prolonging life, our evolutionary history still subjects us to this humiliating reality that life after forty is on borrowed time.
Paradoxically, forty is ever more considered as entering one’s prime in life. The same medical science that fails in saving our dear departed friends from their ultimate demise also brings us Viagra, Pacemaker, and women giving births after menopause. It’s the same desire since the dawn of humanity that drives us in search of fountain of youth: the fear of unknown, the fear of death. To seek immortality in this fleeting moment of life, many have sought solace in religion. And yet others try to prolong their lives by vicariously living through their offspring, some even naming them after themselves. If you have one or two billion dollars to throw around, you can buy a basketball team or a football team. The athletic success of your young charges can rejuvenate your bashful fantasy when you had only modest means and even less talent in your youth. Even richer and a bigger ego to match all that money? Cloning is right around the corner. I am sure Larry Ellison would get a kick out of seeing a carbon copy of himself barking at his underlings. (As to why these egomaniacs would have the audacity to populate the world with their own miserable facsimiles is something beyond my comprehension, but I digress.)
Forty also brings maturity and wisdom. We are no longer obsessed with making good impressions on the opposite sex. The relationships are more natural and direct, be it sensual or otherwise. (Having said that, there is no excuse to being vulgar in appearance - it doesn’t have to be either a slob or a GQ model.) Forty also ushers in an era that good eats can go a long mile. Not long ago I could still devour a horse and wash it down with a pint of Häagen-Dazs, until my cholesterol announced his presence. I used to pride myself for leading an active life, rendering going to gym unnecessary. Now under my doctor’s supervision, I’ve become a gym rat. I can burn 200 calories in 20 minutes on a stationary bike. An added benefit is that when I am buried by a ton of water in a surfing wipeout, I no longer huff and puff like a maniac when I reemerge.
After forty, the harshness of life has taken its toll. Raising kids, divorce, the realization that you aren’t likely to make an indelible mark on history, they all contribute to your clinical depression. It’s a small wonder that not many more people are going through midlife crisis. What’s the solution? Escapism. Indulge yourself to all the excess of pleasure known to man. Balance of the brain chemistry is the name of the game. Of course, not all mind-altering trips to the never-never-land have to be drug induced. Personally I prefer to generate dopamine by hardcore sailing sessions in the ocean, or scaling southwest face of El Capitan in an early summer morning. People have told me that the heightened state of euphoria is no less potent than a dose of Math injection. In any case, many a time as I emerging from the ocean, I’d convoy up with my buddies on Highway One to my favorite restaurant in Half-moon Bay. As I look left and see the setting sun fading below the horizon in a spectacular orange glow, the roaring of the sea giving way to a sober meditation in deep blue, a lump would tighten in my throat and tears well up my eyes. “Life is grand,” I’d cry!
Did I mention sentimentality too? The other day I downloaded an album from ITune, the Definitive Collection of ABBA. It has been many years since I listened to them and a flood of memory rushed back. An early summer in Beijing I was an intern in the Institute of Physics of CAS. From the Yuquanlu dorm to Zhongguanchun a shuttle bus would carry us every morning, and back each afternoon. I always sat in the back so I could stare her at a safe distance. After we all disembarked I’d saunter into a morning deli to buy a bottle of yogurt ostensibly, but to spy her until she disappeared in the crowd. She must have felt my heated stare but never let on. We just repeated this charade for six months, until it’s time to go back to school. Never had I the courage to talk to her. But in the dorm when the record player was blasting out “Lay All Your Love on Me,” I had many fantasies of her in various stages of our love relation. (Finally there was one more encounter but she brushed me aside for good.) My only unrequited love withered a painful death long after that. Many years later I happened upon a picture of hers, still as beautiful as ever.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Happy Reading! | 
发表于 2006-5-30 17:10
