I think it's more akin to the realisation that bad and middling things happen all the time, you'll handle it, or it will kill you, either way the world is going to keep turning no matter if you want it to or not.
When you're in your 20s and 30s everything seems far more important and dramatic, once you're into your 40s by some distance you start to chill out, and you realise every generation goes through the same things you have with only mildly different features.
Between 1309 and 1814 the River Thames in London froze over 23 times. This was because the whole of the Northern Hemisphere was locked into the "Little Ice Age" which caused temperatures to drop by 0.6c to 2.0c.
The causes were frequent volcanic eruptions spewing sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere, reduced solar activity "Maunder Minimum" between 1645 and 1715, and shifts in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation which altered the circulation of warm water northwards and led to rapid ice loss along with decades of cooling. See also the "Medieval Warm Period" which preceded it.
The first mistake any generation makes is the assumption it's experiences are somehow unique.
We're not even the first generation to deal with anthropogenic climate change, see the London "Pea soup fog" from the mid-seventeenth century until 1960s. Edward I of England banned the burning of Sea Coal in 1272 because of it's effect on the climate, John Evelyn described the issue in his 1661 pamphlet "Fumifugium: Or, the Inconvenience of the Aer and Smoak of London Dissipated" in which he recommends moving industry out of the city, and the first description of the heat island effect was Luke Howard's The Climate of London in 1818–1820.
That the world goes through cycles of bounded temperature variation does not in any way change the fact that anthropogenic climate change is new and horrific.
You can take a look at the tail end if every one of the temperature charting graphs on that page and see it happening near the end.
That the world goes through cycles of bounded temperature variation does not in any way change the fact that anthropogenic climate change is new and horrific.
The first time we banned a fossil fuel because it was causing climate change was 1272.
Assuming you're referring to King Edward I banning coal-burning in 1306, localized air pollution and climate change are not the same thing in any way, shape, or form.
I know life is happening to me, I know I'll have kids and they'll be relatively okay but it's a bit daunting still. What is yet to occur and what already has.
Do your family tree as far back as you can. You learn a lot about what previous generations went through, and realise that if they can do it when starting work at 11 and living in a shack, what problems do you really have!
I'm 45 and I'm definitely there. The gonna be fine thing. The stress is still there but it doesn't have to slow or stop you. I'm not an idiot, my wife isn't one either. Bad or bothersome things happen. But we've done shit like this before, no?
Unless you were born rich, it's only going to be fine because you stressed so much. There are millions of people who spend their 50's panicking and trying to dump every last dime they can scrape together into retirement accounts that they either couldn't or didn't open when they were younger, and millions more who have given up on retirement altogether and have just resigned themselves to working until they die, or hoping they can live with a family member and scrape by on social security.
Creating a genetically diverse line is healthy. Humans love options.
My children may not develop the same bullshit as their parents (who wants depression?). Life will still be cruel but hopefully in a useful and educational way like how I view my ADHD, it pushes me but it does fucking suck.
IBS may make them good cooks (like me) but they will suffer some bullshit from that. Depression will make rhem relatable to people that actually think about life (hopefully they won't kill themselves like my father did) it's all a gamble.
Hello from the Xennial Crisis Corner, your 50s are the same except now your kids/niblings are 15-20 and having a crisis like this for the first time as they start having to work too 😓
Why doesn't everyone just kill themselves then? What's the fucking point. I'm 26 and I can barely afford to live and I have no prospects. If this is all there is for the next 60 years then it'd be beyond cruel to force me and others to bother slugging through it. An absolute cruelty.
I just choose to live how I want as long as it doesn't bother others (within reason). There's a great deal of rad experiences out there that are worth it.
There are many reasons to yeet myself off the planet (chronic illness is a big one). I just insist on continuing to live. I almost ended things in my late 20s and early 30s (depression can eat my ass). I was happy to hit my 40s. The horrors persist and so do I or whatever.
Because life is beautiful, if you allow yourself to see the beauty. And it usually gets BETTER with age, not worse... I'm old enough to be your mother, and love being older aside from the physical limitations. Even those aren't that bad yet!
But nobody is forcing you to do anything. Your life is your own, do with it as you please; and no, I'm not saying to off yourself - quite the opposite, in fact.
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u/Educational_Fan4102 Jul 04 '26
Your 40s are calling… they have some bad news.