MID-LIFE CRISES - CORVETTES, BIFOCALS AND PHOTOGRAPHY (Jaeda's Artists' Cafe 10/13/99)

I'm 48 years old, white, a little overweight and getting grey in the beard. This is an exploration of a comment made by a friend that it might be Corvette time for me, and equating that with my photography.

Part of a mid-life crisis is discarding the fears of looking foolish and doing those things that one has always wanted to do, but has avoided because of a social cost. Buying a Corvette, if there's no room for the baby seat, is seen as selfish, and as inappropriate to those circumstances. Buying a Volvo station wagon is responsible.

As I've stated elsewhere, my photography is purely selfish. When I did it for money, it was cloaked in "making a living," and the respectability of providing a service. Now, as buying a Corvette would be, it's done despite some social costs, and because I want to.

My father died this year at the age of 71. Do the arithmetic. I'm 48. My first 21 years were spent learning what the world is about. The next 26 years were spent practicing the lessons of the first 21 years, being "responsible," serving my country, raising a family - and enjoying and studying a hobby and an art - photography. But the constraints of "responsibility" required that it be a hobby (or a job) rather than a passion. Scandinavians don't have "passions." It isn't respectable.

Last year I discovered what any bright 18 year old has known all along. A passion does not need the approval of the whole society. I suspect that many men my age are discovering the truth as well, and are acting on it. And I suspect that those who never took on the burdens of living a society-approved life never have a noticeable mid-life crisis. They have no reason (unless there's some converse example, where they decide to settle down, buy stocks, have a family and drive an Oldsmobile.)

So, for the time I have left (it could easily be another fifty years) I expect to follow whatever passion engulfs me, whether it is photography, another art form, travel, philosophy, or something entirely different. I'll try to keep society in mind and avoid arrest and confinement, but otherwise avoid being dragged by the popular tide. Maybe I'll buy a Corvette.

I like Corvettes. But the Bronco is bigger (I know - it's how you use it). And it carries bunches of camera stuff, and up to five fashion models (or four glamour models - you figure it out).

-Don