A Portrait at 45

Today I turn 45, and though not one for milestones, this year more than most begs reflection. It is most obviously marked by my dad's difficulties with dementia and physical injury - and transparently, my fears for him echo upon myself, too - infirmity awaits me just as surely. Yet I also sense that I have come now to a certain 'rightness' - a harmony with my life's circumstances, a belief that I am basically whole, that any remaining imbalances exist generally around the periphery. This does not necessarily reassure - wholeness leaves mystery nowhere to hide - it is both an admission and acceptance that this is all I am.

I went back to work last winter, a change refreshing in its normality and in the basic good faith of my coworkers, whose trust I take as my own to earn (I believe have largely done so). I had spent last fall working at SpeedPro, following Merry's departure from Boys Town, and now I spend occasional nights continuing to build and refine tools for their production processes. I continue to do this because they rely on me, and because it satisfies me to build entire 'things' - to thoughtfully align software to real-world human action is, I believe without irony, a modern artisanal medium.

I have also moved slowly towards woodworking - first with my dad and now whenever the practical need arises (these are rarely complex or elaborate in any way). I find myself in the familiar dilemma of enjoying an idea (in this case the Christoper Alexander-ish notion of designing spaces in harmony with people) more than the process itself. Thus I care more about curating a space than that the woodworking itself is executed with procedural or technical precision. So perhaps I should call what I am doing design and not woodworking.

Some ideas that are especially alive within me at this age:

1. Jung's theory of psychic complexes and the necessity of "making the unconscious conscious." This is a lens through which I view events every day, as I try to learn to treat myself and people around me better.
2. To this end, the most critical "meta-lessons" to teach my kids are their own power of agency, and the freedom to pursue meaning in the world. More selfishly, I want my kids to love me as much as I can rightfully deserve.
3. AI will necessitate "zero trust" systems in virtually all parts of society, as every window of implicit trust is an arbitrage opportunity for bad actors, and AI plunges the cost curve of these attacks downward. And though the Red Queen Race will surely continue between security tech and its exploitation, blockchains (if not necessarily particular cryptocurrencies) will benefit proportionate to the degree trust in nation-scale social and financial organizations and infrastructure erodes.
4. Looking further out, Enlightenment-era human values must be made integral to any autonomous forms of our increasingly-powerful technologies if the world is not to devolve into a state of all-domain war from which few of us - and perhaps none - would be likely to survive.

Some art that has particularly shaped me the last couple years:

1. Bruno Schulz's collected stories, so often circling the father, a sort of quester/trickster demi-god, alternately inspired and pathetic, familiar and unfamiliar, coming and going, finally a symbol of the maximal possibility space of both art and life.
2. Peter Handke's Repetition, in which the narrator's quest for his unmet brother becomes a Campbell-ian Hero's Quest - a departure from modest means and a return home to reintegrate into a patrilineage forever altered in his eyes. The mirroring of the narrator and his lost brother throughout has lingered with me ever since, as have the words of WG Sebald in perhaps my favorite single piece of literary analysis.
3. Paul West's Words for a Deaf Daughter evokes a parent's particular lament: that the gulf to a child's inner world is uncrossable, and after a certain age, whatever closeness we might have achieved will inevitably wane.
4. George Stewart's Earth Abides, a book most centrally about letting go of that which is unspeakably close to us.
5. Kay Sage's work generally.
6. Hailu Mergia's seminal album Wede Harer Guzo, especially the title track.
7. Various ambient and near-ambient albums that approach a form I previously wrote about.

A few years ago I filled my free time primarily with writing and occasionally with reading - now that balance has flipped, as I seldom find my inspiration aligning with the time, energy, and focus required to write. Occasionally I will read some old story of mine and find myself nodding - the images that inspired them still feel true, though I seldom know how to improve meaningfully upon them. Perhaps that's simply a sign they are done, even when they haven't achieved the release I sense is possible.

I have spent the last 25 years gradually accepting life's fundamental loneliness. Where I once thought I would eventually discover ways to find people "more like me", now I suspect that very premise was always a projection, that it is primarily myself I remain distant from, that I don't yet fully understand who I am or what I need. Will my life pass with a greater version of myself still undiscovered?

To wit: I continue to struggle as a father to Eamon, who just turned four, and the persistence of my frustration suggests the problem is me. Is my anger that Eamon disobeys me just mirrored anger that I so often disobey myself, failing to follow through on my own intentions? Not for the first time, the race is on to discover how to fix myself before I permanently damage someone I love.

Much of life seems to be variations upon this, and as despair creeps in, I increasingly wonder where I can possibly find shelter. Simultaneously, the knowledge that my family needs me takes precedence over anything else - the exciting destinations I desire to visit, having a bigger house or better things. Instead, I ask: what will give me the strength as I get older to hold out against the wolf at the door, the ever-shrinking world around me? Of this, I see only the faces of my children and Merry, and I know that it is only if they should dissolve away that I would be truly defeated.

Despite all I have just confessed, I am basically content. I get to be close to my family and my parents and I have many long-time friends that I can always pick back up with wherever we left off. Only today, I woke up 45 years old! The path in front of me is, in a sense, easy to understand: with my feet stable beneath me, I must reach for any forms of greatness I can while the chance to do so still remains.