I’m a habitual reader of biographies, preferably of dead people. In 1985, New York Mets’ pitcher Dwight Gooden wrote his autobiography. He was 21. What could he possibly write about, the fourth grade? I passed on Gooden’s book. I want the whole story, cradle to grave, so it’s dead people for me or nothing.
Fortunately, there are lots of books about dead people and I’ve read hundreds of them: men, women, celebrities, politicians, famous figures from history, and sometimes obscure lives that catch my eye for whatever reason. Currently, I’m slogging through a 755-page behemoth on the mid-19th century Austrian diplomat, Clemens von Metternich. I have no idea why.
One thing I look for in every life story is the “peak-point”, that moment when someone is at the very top of the roller coaster, before they begin the inevitable descent– if not steep plunge– to the boneyard that awaits us all. No matter how famous, infamous or obscure, it’s a rare bird who recognizes, while they’re living it, that this is their finest hour. We humans, despite the knowledge of our own mortality, are endlessly optimistic. Even people who already have everything; health, wealth, love and more wealth, believe tomorrow will somehow be even better.
Age teaches us otherwise.
A new study of 2,000 Americans, funded by some kind of pill that’s supposed to help us live forever or something, concluded the best year of our lives is our 36th.
For me, thirty-six is so far in the rear-view mirror it’s like the 13th floor of a high rise. And not just my thirty-sixth year. Most of my thirties (and a good chunk of my 20s) are a blank slate for reasons we need not get into here. Still, the arc of everybody’s life has its peaks and valleys. Even Tom Hanks’ life. Remember “Joe versus the Volcano?” When things are going rotten, we’re acutely aware of every bad break and bump in the road. Yet, how many of us soak in the good times; that magic moment when it will never be better?
For most of us, we don’t gain that insight until later in life. That’s the tragedy of Al Bundy. “Married… With Children’s” everyman realizes too late his life climaxed the day he scored four touchdowns for Polk High.
Hopefully, our best days were not in high school. Although, judging from social media posts, millions of us long for the good ol’ days of the 1970s, 80’s and even the 1990s, with the children of each of these decades claiming they had the best music, the best cars, and the most fun. I’m not nostalgic about my high school years. I did not look good in bellbottoms. I went to an all-boys high school. I’ve never played air guitar.
The idea that our lives peak at 36 is also strange to me. Yes, at that tender age our knees don’t pop when we get up from the couch, we still have hair where we want it and we can could go to Marie Callender’s without having to poke a new hole our belts afterwards. At 36, we have enough life ahead of us to “get around to it”, whatever “it” is.
For ballplayers, their lives might peak by winning the World Series or an Olympic gold medal; for actors maybe it’s picking up an Academy Award. But most of us don’t experience uber-highs that are showcased to the whole world. Our best days are usually private affairs; our wedding day, (if not the first, maybe the second or third) the birth of our children, or the day we retire with enough bread in the bank to live with dignity if not ease.
A lucky few live their entire lives in the moment; savoring every sandwich, every full moon and sunny day. That wasn’t me growing up. But I’m getting there. With each candle on the birthday cake, I’ve come to enjoy simpler things and covet the extravagant less.
No pollster has ever asked what the best year of my life has been, but when the do, I have the answer. My next year.
Doug McIntyre’s column appears Sundays. He can be reached at: Doug@DougMcIntyre.com.
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