Screw You 47.2

To continue with the weekly theme of aging and decay, you might want to listen to the newest episode of The Indicator. It's called "Peak Misery and the Happiness Curve," and-- according to Dartmouth Professor David Branchflower-- the peak of misery (or the nadir of darkness and despair) occurs at age 47.2. Your happy when you're young, and you become happy again as you get older-- but you won't be as happy as you were at 18 until you reach your 60s.

I've passed 47.2, and I'm feeling good about it (aside from the weather and the copious goose-shit in the park). My shoulder is serviceable, my knees don't hurt too much this week, and I'm still ambulatory and with some mental faculties.

I checked back to May of 2017-- when I was 47.2-- and I didn't notice much depression. The saddest post was about the death of Chris Cornell (and the consequent death of grunge). I checked to see if Cornell's suicide occurred when he was 47.2, but no such coincidence-- he was 52.

I did a word cloud of that fateful month's posts and there's nothing unusual. Soccer, Ian, Catherine, beer. And "China" and "Chinese." That's weird, but not depressing.



If you're somewhere in the vicinity of 47.2 years of age and looking for something nostalgic to listen to, this podcast tells the story of E.T. the video game and how it led to the demise of Atari and a slump in the entire home video game industry.  It's a compelling tale (and I never heard the story-- my family had Intellivision).

7 comments:

rob said...

pretty sure my peak misery was at 40. which makes me ahead of my time. unless...fuck...that was just foreshadowing.

zman said...

I'm pretty miserable but I guess I have room to grow in that regard. My misery stems less from my physical condition than my responsibilities for taking care of other people.

Professor G. Truck said...

you never know peak misery until you hit it. and the taking care of people thing should dissipate in a while (until people have to take care of your geriatric ass).

zman said...

Are you saying my mother grandmother and mother in law will dissipate soon?

Professor G. Truck said...

probably by the time you're 85

Whitney said...

We had Intellivision as well. The baseball game seemed amazing at the time and would now look prehistoric. I’ll have to see if it’s somewhere on YouTube for a chuckle.

Dave said...

my brother and i loved that baseball game. and the football one. i still remember my go-to play: 9624.

baseball was odd-- you could throw a runner out at first every time a ball was hit to right field.

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