Later Middle Age

Abstract

What is here called later middle age is the last twenty of the mature years, the period, say, from age 46 tot 65. The individual experiences at this period the rueful satisfaction of completing a cycle. It is not difficult to see the end from here, and the end is not a satisfaction in any sense. The drive toward self-aggrandizement has usually been blunted, the need to dominate the entire environment if of course swept away in all of its inclusive senses, leaving perhaps the residue of inclusion by surrender which is implicit in what I have earlier called super-identification. Far-away goals now seem more important than nearby goals, the need to exceed himself is for the individual at this stage a thing of the past; there is no longer any basic aggression dominating the ingredients of his personal career. The framework within which he lives serves more as a limitation than as an opportunity. Space has closed in and time speeded up. There are neither many hours to lose nor much distance to lose them in—and not much more to be done, anyway.