The U-Shaped Life Curve

Harsh reality.

Gee…I wonder why that is…

…the most recent figures suggest that being black or Hispanic is nowadays associated with greater happiness.

When you are in the ascendant, when you see a bright racial future for your kind, when you are ever more victorious, of course you’ll be happy.  Whites are becoming like Native Americans – a defeated and despondent people.

Here’s the secret to the U-shaped life curve. Young people are happy because they are young – they have their whole lives ahead of them; they see unlimited opportunities; they are at the peak of health, vigor, and physical attractiveness.  Old people are happy because of delusion. The fear of impeding death causes them to over-compensate and engage in hysterical denial over the harsh reality of their decrepitude, as they desperately try to convince themselves that they are “happy.” Some are too feeble-minded to realize how terrible their life is, and was. Others may simply have become resigned to their fate, and come to terms with how empty and meaningless their existence has been, and still is. They all desperately try and grasp onto every moment of remaining life in denial of the inevitable fate that awaits them…awaits us all.  It is a form of demented hysteria born out of the sheer terror of death. Folks in their 50s, on the other hand, realize all they have lost and are losing and they harbor no delusions.  They are not yet suffering from the delusions of death-fear or of neurodegenerative dementia. They are immersed in the unrelenting bleakness of their utter despair; middle age is the sweet spot for enlightened misery. They’ve lost the best years of their life, they’ve often been cheated out of their life, had their lives essentially stolen from them, they’ve seen all their dreams and hopes destroyed, and they are living pathetic inauthentic existences merely and solely in order to make ends meet and to fulfill the expectations of others. They are miserable simply because they see harsh reality without blinders.  They may become particularly frustrated when they realize that while they do have some useful time left, circumstances prevent them from doing what they want to do with that time. They hate their lives and for good reason. Thus, sandwiched between youthful exuberance and elderly delusion is a period of soul-searing clarity.  Enjoy.