Twenties Are Rough. What About Thirties?

When I was in my twenties, there was this bookabout twenties. It was very popular, and so I read it. The central idea of the book is that twenties are very difficult, because our brains continue developing till thirties.

My brain is still very much developing, and I’m approaching my forties.

Yeah, my twenties were rough, very rough. But what about my thirties, huh?

  1. At 30, I became a father. Of a wonderful, but autistic girl. In a society not yet developed enough for that to be … at least not that difficult. It’s difficult. It’s very difficult.

  2. Then there was Covid-19 pandemic. I was desperately in need of an office job (to survive parenting), while everyone was working remotely. And I had a tremendous experience of doing just that, working remotely. It was super difficult to find a not remote job.

  3. Then revolution in my home country happened. I’ve been fighting the dictator tooth and nails, yet most people preferred to protest with fun and casually, achieving nothing in result and having great losses in the end. The rebels lost this time. I have lost either, investing tremendous resources into the matter. Believing this time people would actually fight for their future in that country tooth and nails. Turned out, the people aren’t yet ready to fight. Probably 30 years isn’t enough to understand the autocracy isn’t a happy place.

  4. Then our second child kicked in. A wonderful boy, yet they are all demons before they start walking and talking, at least. The first year is always difficult, even if you’re happy to have the healthy child.

  5. Then, before he was one year old, the war happened. Fucking Russia attacked us. I ’ve been helding the citizenship of the country that lost the battle of a dictatorship, and dictator sided with the aggressor.

    All my bank accounts were frozen and then terminated. I couldn’t accept any payments from any of my employers for over a year. I was a persona non-grata everywhere, even despite the fact I’m not actually Belarusian, nor consider myself to be one. I’m just happened to have the passport, and haven’t managed to drop it many years ago, when I could do it super-easily.

    I was just too young and stupid to understand the world around me. And no real parents to help me with at least some advice. I was constantly fighting against the things where most people have their support.

  6. Now, I crossed the age of 35, approaching my forties. Trump won the elections, and there’s a very big chance he’ll behave carelessly and do something very stupid. Which may endanger my life even more, as much as my wife’s and kids too.

I gained my weight, becoming weak, weaker than I was before.

Turned out, I was pretty strong! Compared to now.

Now, I have to spend even more resources to just come back to the point where I was. I’m not getting younger, so that’s an uphill battle. There’s no chance of winning it, only delaying the unavoidable.

All I want now, is to make it to forties. But I’d love to be a one hundredth man, if possible. I’d love to see the end of this century. I may help building it for the best of humanity. I will help doing that. I am already. I just need more time to make the real impact.

But analysing these past 5 years, the challenges are getting stronger and stronger. I wonder, a full-blown World War III, when? Before my forties or right after it?

Would the thing all these cowards of the XX century were so afraid of, would it be just a minor event of our lives? Most of us would likely to survive this war anyway.

There are plenty of us, humans. I’m happy for all of you to stay. But I’d like to stay too.

Shall I change something to make it all more bearable? Because sometimes I think that must be a joke. The one I’m not getting. Maybe I’m just too slow to understand something obvious, huh?