We can’t afford convertibles. So how do Millennials have a midlife crisis?

I’d like to believe that I am about one-quarter of the way through my life. Basic mathematics and the limits of human biology suggest this is not true unless I become one of those weird tech entrepreneurs who swap out their blood for pre-mix Coke Zero and keep extensive data on the viscosity of every piss.

If, as is more likely, I am not destined to become the first human being never to die, then like many Millennials I am sitting somewhere between one-third and one-half of the way through the game, give or take a vice or a penchant for not looking both ways before crossing the street.

DJ decks, pickling jars, smoking meats – welcome to the new midlife cliches.Credit: Getty Images

This doesn’t frighten me. I have been an old man since I was very young. Also, I have a feeling that the way things are going there’s a non-zero chance that I get to see the end of humanity, which really helps eliminate the FOMO.

Also, taboo as this may be, I am really enjoying seeing myself and my cohort age. As much as I may wish that my wife might have waited until it wasn’t my actual birthday to point out the grey hairs coming through, or as much as I may wish that my wife hadn’t announced we were spending my birthday on a special trip to the optometrist to get my eyes tested, I am enjoying stepping into this next phase of life.

What fascinates me is how we are going to approach this as a generation. Culturally, we are perhaps the most navel-gazing, over-documented generation to touch earth, and as the first people to ever age, we are going to want to document it endlessly, hence, uh, you know, articles like this very one you’re reading right now.

But also, get this. It is very interesting, hence article, you see?

There were certain clichés of the midlife crisis of years gone by, but each required a certain level of disposable income that our generation simply cannot afford. We are not able to purchase an ill-advised red convertible that we believe distracts from our horseshoe balding pattern, even while directly exposing it to the freeway air. You can forget about having a secret second family in another state. We can hardly afford our not-secret first family.

We are perhaps the most navel-gazing generation to touch earth, and as the first people to ever age, we are going to document it endlessly.

The Millennial midlife crisis has sadder accoutrement. A simple starter pack might look like a DJ deck or a podcast microphone. It could look like a medal from a half-marathon (see my previous work in this very masthead for further discussion of this). We have the return to university, the oh-so-chic divorce, and the extravagant birthday party with the rhyming invitation (30 and flirty, 40 and naughty, 50 and shifty, 90 and raging-against-the-dying-of-the-lighty).

My refuge is confined to the kitchen and the backyard. I am now a smoker. I smoke fairly constantly. I will smoke socially, I will smoke all night, I will smoke through the day. In my twenties, this would have been the cool kind of smoking, with the health risks and illegal extra ingredients. Now, in this decade of my life, it’s the kind of smoking that involves multiple trips to Bunnings, getting to know your butcher on a first-name basis, and promising your guests that the food will be ready in either 40 minutes or five hours.

The smoked-meat indulgence is then coupled with the obsessive art of pickling. Who would have thought after all these years of serving milkshakes, coffees, acai bowls and the occasional crumpet in a mason jar, we would find they could also be used for preserving food?

I think I have realised that with everything else in the world unstable, and with any work put into my body doing little more than buying time in a losing game, the best investment I can make is devoting myself to the sandwiches of tomorrow. For it is my belief that society grows great when people prepare condiments for sandwiches that they themselves may never eat.

Of course, they do a little more than that, too. A disgusting ad for pasta sauce used to claim that when you cook, you “make love to everyone” and while I find this a massive violation of marriage vows and food preparation, I cannot help but notice that I am using the smoke not just to flavour a slow-cooked pork shoulder for a brisk 14 hours, but as a way to bring people together and show them that, while we are all hurtling toward oblivion, as least we are headed there together.

Now, decide which one of you gets the first DJ set because lunch will be ready in seven to nine hours.

To read more from Spectrum, visit our page here.

Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up for our Opinion newsletter.