The One-Third Life Crisis and Other Things Smart-Ass Therapists Skip…

Okay, so I’ve got think up something new for my blog profile…

At a slightly ripening age of thirty five, I definitely no longer qualify for the term “Quarter Life Crisis.” Not that I’m having a crisis at all… or am I? Which leads me to wonder if psycho-therapists, a.k.a. “shrinks” only have the Mid-Life Crisis labeled after the recently labeled “Quarter Life Crisis,” which they sooo creatively coined into the acronym ‘QLC” (it’s in WIKIPEDIA!), does that mean I can’t have a crisis in between?

Let’s assume first that at this age, I am having a crisis of some sort… should I call it the “One-Third Life Crisis?” But that doesn’t sound anywhere near as cool or hip as the prefix “Quarter-Life,” does it? Should I assume to consider myself having a “minor” crisis between the “major” milestone crises? But who has a right to call my crisis “minor”? Assuming I am having a crisis in the first place…

So what is a “Something-Life Crisis” anyways…?

I’ve done my share of looking around, asking around, reading around, and yes, reflecting… sounds deep, huh? But seriously, I have the answer… okay, I have AN answer, not THE answer. The Iglesia ni Cristo guys claim to have that… no, wait… every devout Catholic claims that, too… and so do the nice Muslims who sold me compressed dibidee porno that was so pixelized that pubic hairs look like funky Lego blocks… no wait, that was JAPANESE porno… anyways… yeah, they all have THE answers… oh, and so do the BAD Muslims, who hop on board airplanes while probably thinking that Kamikaze should be considered an Iraqi word…

So therefore, I do NOT have THE answer, just AN answer… yep, I have my own version to what these crazy-ass crises are… here’s my skinny…


The QUARTER-LIFE CRISIS:

WHEN…
The alleged Quarter-Life Crisis age coverage is pretty brief… usually somewhere in the mid-twenties… Usually, after a couple of years of supposedly hard work at some company, a young person thinks he/she has become sooo the man (or woman), and proceeds to have delusions of future grandeur… or in some cases, or most cases here in the Philippines, one finds one’s self having spent a couple of very professionally formative years toiling away at a call center for the easy money, then coming back out into reality with the only personality development being an ersatz Southern American drawl often marred by still-poor grammar… developed skills? Uhm… does becoming ergonomically adapted to wearing a headset count? Does creative insomnia count? Does the superpower to stare at a computer monitor pretending to do something world-changing count? No, no and no.

HOW…
The amusing thing about all this is that nowadays, more than ever, one’s chosen college degree does not necessarily predicate what one’s future profession will be. There are degree holders in computer science, who have pretty much any industry to choose from, there are licensed medical technicians who have become very successful real estate salesmen, or in my case, architecture graduates who have become advertising executives. Even lawyers, who have eventually dedicated their time and lives to professional writing. And many other odd transitions…

"...nowadays, more than ever, one’s chosen college degree does not necessarily predicate what one’s future profession will be..."

Thus, after a couple to a handful of years in any field, the hapless young professional still has the delusion of having the supposed world for his/her taking… Which way to go? What other things to do? What other opportunities to try and grab? Not very different from a buffet at a five-star hotel, where cuisines of every sort are literally right under your nose. They look and smell damn good, heck, they probably ARE good. And you want to try everything. But a couple of platefuls later, while looking longingly at the different buffet lines, one starts feeling his belly is getting stuffed. Then at some point, one concedes that one cannot try everything today. Hopefully on another visit one will sample the Hong Kong section of the buffet, or get a spoonful of that Thai curry, and maybe try a different flavor of those home-made ice creams…

So many goddamn choices…


WHAT…
But life is not exactly like that buffet. One can’t come back another day to try something different for lunch. Your gut can only take in so much, then before you run to the john to shit and make more room, they’re getting ready to clear out the displays.

So you’ve had one plate, you have maybe a couple more plate refills left in life, so you mull real hard whether or not you want more roast beef. But damn, that curry smells good, huh? Which line to hit… which line to hit…?

To sum up the most common estimated questions at this juncture in one’s life:
- What to do next in one’s life?
- Which direction to head?
- What should I grow old doing?
- Should I jump the gun and buy that nice second hand car?
- Should I keep at this low-end job, or finally join the family business?
- Should I finally ditch my long time girlfriend and come out of the goddamn closet?
- Or should I marry propose to her to shut everyone up, but buy my time and marry her after a few years so I can suck a few more dicks before I start crying myself to sleep every night (I can still head out and play in Bangkok!)?

So, the so-called Quarter-Lifer then starts wondering what direction he/she must take in his/her life. This is usually coupled with wondering what one thinks one really wants to do with one’s life…


NOW WHAT…?
At this point in my life, I have concluded that the world isn’t an altogether mean place and that there are really no genuinely bad choices except for a life of crime or prostitution (okay, even that last one isn’t so bad. Heh heh…).

But the choice of direction is an external thing. And the only way to shut one’s self up in connection to what choices one has made is to settle on what identity one takes for the rest of his or her young life. The critical decisions are internal matters.

At the supposed quarter juncture of one’s life, the biggest skill one must learn is resilience. Resilience to live with the consequences of one’s actions, then subsequently make the most of the supposed chosen actions. The resilience to realize that, like the hotel buffet table, everything was carefully prepared in the kitchen and that everything is good.

So you didn’t leave room for dessert so you can taste that mouth-watering mango-kiwi crepe? That’s okay, dude. You still walk out of there full and un-hungry. That peppery beef burp and after-taste? Consequence for too much roast beef. Get a mint and stop looking back longingly at the crepe chef…


The MID-LIFE CRISIS:

WHEN…
One’s supposed Mid-Life Crisis usually starts creeping in sometime in one’s late forties, all the way to one’s late fifties. Personally, I find this just a wee bit odd, since most of us won’t live to see the age of ninety, one’s supposed “mid-life” should ideally pop up somewhere in the late thirties or early forties… but never mind that..

HOW…
With the pace of life raging on ever faster, one’s Mid-Life Crisis kicks in almost always by trigger shock. Usually by the departure of the last child from the family home, that tragic first night when they find they can’t get their weenie up whenever they want it to, or even the sudden realization that he or she will never be able to afford anything more than a second hand Japanese compact sedan or less…

WHAT…
Essentially, I find that people who experience what could be considered a Mid-Life Crisis find themselves bitching about a ton of things that ultimately boil down to the whatever mix of the following questions and/or phrases:
- “I haven’t done enough in my life, but I’m halfway through it…”
- “I’m really tired, but I’m nowhere near what I want my life to be…”
- “I’m going downhill from here on, am I leaving anything of worth behind…?”
- (for men) “can I take Viagra and not get a heart attack?”
- (for women) “can my husband take Viagra and not get a heart attack?”

So based on my own most humble and modest analysis, people who go through Mid-Life Crises basically find themselves questioning their level of achievement, and their own grim assessment of some sort of failed personal legacy…

NOW WHAT…
I don’t really know people do to get over this, and being only thirty five I can’t even pretend to have a good enough guess. But I somehow believe that many people do not get over this stage. Leading to the next level of classification called the GRUMPY OLD MAN or NASTY OLD HAG phases…

* * * * *

I do not hold a psychology degree, nor any degree that qualifies whatever I wrote above. But more than anything, these are what have kept me relatively sane and happy. Worked for me, hopefully, they will work for you, too…

Oh, except for that mid-life crisis part… personally haven’t gone through that yet…

skip this post...

Absolutely pointless post here... just getting something off my flabby chest...

One of the pillars of what is Maverick is on his way to Dubai to follow his girlfriend...
I suppose Mike Lorenzo was going sooner or later... but hey, it'll still smart a bit... good men like that don't come around too often. Neither do they stick around for 6.5 years... But all good things, as they say...

So that leaves room for new recruits... we decided we needed a junior visual guy to help Noddy ( Fernandez ) and the boys, and a junior writer to help out old Chinks (Chinky Pagdanganan nee Caisido)...

"Oh, we have room for a writer... someone try and get Liz back...!" this is a thought that I'm sure went through everyone's mind... See, Liz Villegas is/was (with all due respect to Chinks) probably the single purest writer I’ve ever worked with. A pure writer who made everything she did look so damn easy. Someone whose work I’ve never been good at critiquing since it’s usually better than whatever I can come up with. But she also came with a writer’s temperament… and onion skin… sooo… for the nth time, i was told the translated reply was “not in a million light years…” oh well…

Marge in the City…

So it’s Sunday, and we’re back in the City… the Medical City, that is.

After a few days of her stereophonic coughing and a few drops of antibiotics, Marge’s increasingly labored breathing rate dictated that we bring her to the emergency room right away… so we did.

As I write this, Marge has received a drip of meds, an oxygen mask (which she hates), an oxygen gauge attached to her big toe (which glows a funky red…), and we’re camped in a room without a fridge.

Supposedly out of danger, but this is still a hospital, and we’re checked in…

* * * * *

For what it’s worth, I must commend the Medical City for having a separate pediatric section in their ER, and for having a very clean, calming and not too oppressive ER in general. Of course, the wifey just credits this to the hospital’s newness. But it was a total contrast to the smelly marketplace that was the Makati Med ER, the slightly better but obviously old and very eventful St. Luke’s ER, and the quite efficient, but obviously old and under-budgeted Capitol ER, where I screamed like a bitch while a resident jammed a needle into different places of my ripped palm…

Another bonus was me finding that the wifey and Marge were already being attended to when I got back up in the ER after parking the van.

The only thing that bothered me about the pediatric section was how fucking upbeat, sometimes cheerful and plain pleasant the staff was.

It was quite disconcerting. I was sweating like a pig on a treadmill, and asked the physician who attended to us and who received the instructions of Marge’s doctor, Dr. Delfin Santos, whether she seemed upbeat because Marge wasn’t in any real danger. She candidly and quite oddly replied that they are trained to act as though they are instinctively countering any potential panic situation. An answer of course, that somehow implies that I have something to panic about…

* * * * *

It’s funny how one has to be really good reading between the lines and forced pleasantries of medical professionals to patiently dig through to the truth sometimes. But I simply credit this to the fact that medical staff are still people. And as people, they don’t like delivering bad news. You have to pry their mouths open with some psychic crowbar.

Hopefully, no false pleasantries here, and no need for crowbars…

Movie Review: Hancock

Identity Crisis...

Last 2005, fresh prince Will Smith starred in what would have been called “The Last First Kiss” (or was it “The First Last Kiss”?)… either way, the title sucked.

So I think I remember reading somewhere that Mr. Smith “cool-ified” the movie’s title by naming it after the title character’s nickname. Resulting in the much cooler-sounding “Hitch,” and the even cooler $368 million in worldwide box office receipts.

This year, Mr. Smith would have starred in a movie called “Tonight, He Comes,” a title that vaguely sounds like an epic gay porno movie… again, thankfully, the gods of rewriting swooped down and saved Mr. Smith’s resume from having another potentially sucky title. “Tonight, He Comes” eventually ended up being called the less cringe-worthy “Hancock.” (which, come to think of it, also sounds like a gay porno movie… ah well…)

And yes, it has also grossed over $100 million and counting…

Now, about da movie…

My first bump of awareness in connection to “Hancock” was half a year ago on a blurb on one of those superhero geek sites I sometimes stumble into. I found my way to a YouTube trailer, and was absolutely hooked.

See, the trailer was damn funny, featuring very likely scenarios if ever there was an alcoholic superhero running around town. Reactions to Smith’s Hancock’s existence were well-written, and sounded like real people. And the occasional nod to William Katt’s crash-test dummy of a superhero in his 80’s TV serial is appreciated by a fan like me. I was expecting to see the movie and come out with my growing gut filled with gas from all the belly laughs. Oh, and I eventually found out that the picture-perfect Miss Charlize Theron was on board, too. Never mind Jason Bateman… not against him, but not a screaming fan… but Charlize… man… that’s a woman…

Anyways… while I didn’t come out of the movie having laughed my ass off, I honestly didn’t feel like the wifey and I wasted our time… so it wasn’t totally a comedy, it was sometimes overtly dramatic, hardly romantic, far from being labeled “action-packed,” and too lame to be a sci-fi fantasy. So what was it, and what made it a decent hour and a half?

Simple. It was a Will Smith movie.

Somehow, while I didn’t really buy into Will Smith looking and acting like a bum… (I whispered to the wifey that I think they should’ve given Jamie Foxx a shot at this role)… But Will Smith manages to make almost anything look cool. Even Bagger Vance…

SPOILER ALERT…

The first half was pure fun. Pretty much everything on the YouTube trailer… it was a cool concept… bum of a superhero, drunk and accident-prone, lost, immortal, bored, been there, done that… and lonely.

Now the second half has been a lot of flack from all the reviews. But it isn’t necessarily bad, it just seemed like something from a totally different movie. It’s like between the first half and the second, the movie went through puberty… ah, waitaminit… it DID. Some bloke named Vincent Ngo threw that script titled “Tonight, He Comes” at Hollywood last 1996… been twelve years, and five directors later…

The second half, where Charlize Theron starts acting like a horny ex-wife who suddenly sees her probably equally horny (and very lonely) ex-husband present and totally available, is sometimes cheesy almost to the point of me wanting to go out and buy more popcorn… even though I still had some popcorn…

And yes, in the second half, Charlize Theron is revealed to be a horny ex-wife who suddenly finds her equally horny and very amnesiac ex-husband being friendly with her current hubby. And she tries to drive him out, because being near him will cause them to lose their powers and grow old and stuff… geez…

And then there’s the feeble attempt at producing some villains to go up against Mr. Hancock… pathetic characters, to say the least…

The ending was half-baked. But Will Smith is plain watchable, Jason Bateman (of Arrested Development fame) seemed to be trying too hard but not to the point of being annoying, and Charlize Theron remains a sight for sore eyes… so what the heck…

All things considered, I think Hancock had a solid enough premise to have been a very solid TV series. Slightly bumbling, easy-to-annoy, smart-ass superhero who doesn’t care much what the public thinks, but is really a good guy at heart… lots of stories there…

Judging from the box office reports, they might find “Hancock” worth doing a sequel for. Let’s hope they do it better than this.

Back in the Big City...

First Saturday back in the big city… wait… first Saturday AGAIN. Looks like it’s going to be a long series of first Saturdays. Hopefully. If it does become that, then I’ll be doing something right.

So Marge has effectively made us miss a handful of “cultural must-see’s,” like “Sex and the City,” Sharon Cuneta’s “Caregiver” (call me cheap, call me corny, but don’t forget to call me a fan…), and then there’s Angelina Jolie’s “Wanted,” and a few others I’ve forgotten about at this point… Partly due to Marge, and of course partly due to my now-regular up-and-down treks between Manila and Baguio city.

But we came back with errands to run, people to visit, movies to see, for me a company to run, and more meetings than I can shake a stick at.

And being back, the wifey and I made sure we caught a movie… Will Smith’s “Hancock” is showing… cool…

* * * * *

So the challenge now is how to be able to hit the ground running at any time with the least amount of rev time needed, if at all.

I now have a department in the store I’ve taken upon myself (unless Philip steps back in and turns things around), and I have to make sure that that orphaned department starts making some serious money. And I have to make sure that thing keeps running even when I’m not there.

In the same token, I have an ad agency with good people, and while some people seem to be stepping up, I’m still waiting for someone to step up and take crazy risks that pay off.

* * * * *

I still get raised eyebrows whenever I talk about my rather suicidal time management… wonder if I should start writing my epitaph…