Musings At Midlife

By Troy Rampy, Editor, The Wellness Blog™

“The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.”     —  Arthur Schopenhauer

Yesterday I had one of those small epiphanies that happen on occasion to shock us out of our complacency. I was online and ran across the original “We Are the World” music video that three performing artists … Lionel Richie, Quincy Jones, and Michael Jackson … orchestrated 25 years ago as a fund raiser for African famine relief.

There they were, all those musical super stars sharing that wonderful Grammy and American Music Award-winning song, singing their hearts out: Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Dionne Warwick, Tina Turner, Kenny Rogers, Kenny Loggins, Bruce Springsteen … even Bob Dylan … and about 20 more.

You’d recognize all of them. They were the musical luminaries of their time. They had come together in this heady, heartstrings-pulling summit of outreach and beneficent giving. As I watched, the tears began to roll down my cheeks. And all was right in the world. I wanted to write a check, right then and there, and send it in … 25 years after the fact!

But then, in the media-rich culture that is our contemporary YouTube labyrinth to navigate, I pulled up a “related video”. It was the recent, 25-year-anniversary remake and fundraiser for Haiti, also produced by Lionel Richie and Quincy Jones. (But alas, poor Michael … we knew him well … or did we?)

At any rate, here was the same concept, the same song, and same intent: lots of musical luminaries brought together for a good cause. This time, there was Barbra Streisand. And then there was … well, Barbra Streisand. And of course … hmmmmm, Barbra. But who were all these other people? The sad fact was I only recognized four or five of the approximately 25 to 30 featured entertainers.

That’s when I realized that I was … I was … okay, I was “out of the loop”. Somewhere, during the past 25 years of being a father, running a business, facilitating groups, dealing with health and financial issues and aging parents, coping with the ups and downs of married life, and rooting for the American way of life through the various disappointments of Bill Clinton and the utter wasteland of George W. Bush … somewhere I had lost touch with the pulse of contemporary culture. My cultural orientation had become … irrelevant.

I don’t mind sharing with you that I have been in a bit of a daze ever since. You know, your classic B-movie: “Night of the Living Irrelevant”.  I am aghast. How did this happen? I’ve always been so … with it, clued in, culturally savvy. And now this.

I’m reminded of my parents and my in-laws waxing on about “their music” … the Big Band sound of the 1940s. How smug I was in listening to them. How patronizingly self-satisfied and sure of myself … in my place of righteousness and entitlement as a Boomer.

After all, wasn’t I part of the generation that had led the counterculture of the 1960s? You know, the counterculture … the social revolution … the one we thought would change everything. Long live the civil rights movement … and sexual freedom … and gender equality. Long live John Lennon … and “The Graduate” … and Stewart Brand’s “Whole Earth Catalog”.

Today I talked with my son and we made a date for dinner tomorrow night. My 17-year-old is always freshly full of what’s happening now. I admit, I could use a fix. If nothing else, I just want to be with him in his unabashed joie de vivie and catch up with what’s happening in his life.

But okay, enough of all that. It’s getting toward the end of February. It’s time to do my taxes. Yesterday was garbage day … I put out the recycle and the garbage. (Is this the “chop wood, carry water” of our times?)

And so it goes in post-revolutionary midlife …

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