Okay, I’m a man and I’m going to moan. I’m going to moan about a lot of other men. It isn’t that I’ve put a skirt on or anything like that, but some men just …
… well, you know …
I’ve thought about it often, but it came back to mind with a survey from the British Market Research Bureau, who’ve advised that men between the late 30s, right up to 65, are miserable, with life being a bitch and the ‘mid-life crisis’ in full swing.
Did men have them before it was invented?
I don’t think they did – which suggests we tend to be infected by any social or psychological term that comes along. But could it be that the mid-life crisis IS a reality, due to forces within society we have created ourselves?
Perhaps the most important thinker behind the term was Carl Jung. He looked at men closely and realized there was something missing in their lives from about the late 30s. But whereas the term caught on, Jung’s reasoning did not.
To Jung, we had become entrapped in material living.
What did he mean by this suggestion? Basically, to be fulfilled, a man has to be a success in a material way, but this is only half of living. There is also the spiritual side, the bonds, the intuitions – basically, the meanings of life.
To be fully mature, a person has to be aware of both these influences. Indeed, only can we be whole by appreciating both. Hence, in tying ourselves too much to a material world, life becomes unfulfilling once success has been achieved.
He was a clever fellow was Jung. Unfortunately, though, it was only the ‘sound bite’ that took off, the ‘reason’ being forgotten in an angst-ridden material half-world.
© Anthony North, August 2007
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