I turned forty today.
Confucius supposedly said that at forty, one is no longer perplexed. In Japan, forty is the age of fuwaku—freedom from doubt.
Ha!
I’m perplexed. Thoroughly perplexed.
And this is my maeyaku, the year before my unlucky year, according to the traditional Japanese yakudoshi calendar. The main event is next year.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
Messages to My Younger Selves
Now that I’m forty, I thought I’d send some messages back to my past selves.
First, to me at twenty:
“I don’t know. I don’t know a damn thing about life.”
Next, to me at thirty:
“I don’t know. I don’t know a damn thing about life.”
And finally, to ten-year-old me:
“I don’t know. I don’t know a damn thing about life.”
…And that’s what I have to show for forty years of living.
Normally, you’re supposed to send some wise advice from the future, like “Study harder while you’re young” or “Don’t worry, that decision was the right one.”
But I don’t know what I don’t know.
Sure, there were turning points in each of those periods of my life.
But even looking back, I still don’t know. I still don’t know whether the choices I made were the right ones.
Turning forty hasn’t furnished me with the answers to life.
I Will Never Be Galois
And here I am, right in the middle of what they call a midlife crisis.
You know the thing: you reach the middle of your life and start questioning how you’ve lived and where you’re going.
But why does it bother me so much?
I think it’s because I can finally catch a glimpse of the finish line.
At twenty, I dreamed of conquering the world.
At thirty, I was anxious about getting married.
And now, forty.
I’m beginning to see, vaguely, what sort of person I might become—and what sort I probably never will.
For example, I’ll never be Galois.
Évariste Galois was a mathematician who died at twenty, leaving work that profoundly influenced modern mathematics.
I’ve lived twice as long as he did.
And I haven’t done anything comparable that will go down in history.
I can’t become anybody! I just can’t!
…Then again.
Come to think of it, I don’t think I ever seriously considered exactly what sort of person I wanted to become.
World Domination and Konnyaku in Oden
It’s not as though I lacked ambitions.
I’ve wanted to start a business someday.
I also thought quite seriously about world domination.
I even considered founding a political organization—and actually went ahead and did it.
There were plenty of things I wanted to do.
But ask me, “What kind of person do you want to be?” and I’m stumped.
After all, about the most I’d ever thought about my life’s destination was this:
“As long as I can still enjoy a drink with a piece of konnyaku from an oden pot when I’m an old geezer, that’s enough.”
Sounds good to me.
A winter evening. A piece of konnyaku from the oden pot, and a cup of warm sake.
If I can become an old geezer who can enjoy that, well, surely that’s enough.
But hold on!
An amuse-bouche at L’Osier with a glass of white wine is rather nice, too.
I’ve been alive long enough to know not just what Kyogetsu tastes like, but how delicious Mori Izo can be. This is a problem.
Konnyaku in oden is good. Fine French dining in Ginza is good. I still want to conquer the world, and I want to start a business.
Sometimes I feel like I want to become somebody. Other times I feel like it doesn’t really matter if I never do.
What on earth do I want?
I don’t know.
I don’t know a damn thing about life.
Forty, Lost in the Fog
This year was a turning point in my life. A lot happened.
Then again, pretty much every year for the last five has been a turning point…
I changed jobs. I have a family. There’s more and more to think about when it comes to the rest of my life.
I’ve thought about plenty of things, and I’ve done plenty of things, too.
Yet now that I’m forty, I still don’t know what I want to accomplish, what I’m mourning the loss of, or what I should choose next.
Freedom from doubt?
Ha!
More like wandering around in a thick fog.
And on my fortieth birthday, a thought occurs to me.
What should I have for dinner tomorrow?
I don’t know. I don’t know anything at all.
Free from doubt…?