#ann friedman

As online content farms mature and their precariously-employed workforces grow up a little, there’s a whole rash of articles about being 29, and being about to turn 30.

Which is funny, because I’m turning 30 tomorrow. How on trend! (You’d expect nothing else, dear reader.)

Better check I’m doing it right.

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Quora:What are 10 things that you should definitely do before turning 30?

“Like yourself”, “learn how to accept rejection”, “remember life is short”. OH GOD THESE ANSWERS ARE BORING. HOW ABOUT:

1. Find a really good perfume
2. Start cultivating a taste for whisky - and friends with stories to drink it with
3. Be able to sleep out alone, in the wild, and not freak out
4. Deadlifts
5. Forgive your mother
6. Learn to use clothing for theatre, armour and technical function
7. Have an intercontinental affair. Sobbing your heart out at Heathrow is some of the most alive I’ve ever felt
8. Have a regrettable affair. Have several. See the guy unexpectedly in a squat party 10 years later and find you’ve basically forgiven him
9. Get your shit together with regular STI tests
10. Buy your own domain name

Dear younger friends, please let me know how you are getting on.

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ELLE:CANDACE BUSHNELL: I LEARNED TO DISMISS ALL THE CRAP SOCIETY TRIES TO SHOVE DOWN ONE’S THROAT ABOUT TURNING 30

“For my thirtieth, I orchestrated a madly glamorous celebration at the hottest restaurant in town, one of those downtown McNally places. It was a seated dinner for 20 at a table behind a pulled-back curtain on a slightly raised platform, which gave the diners a sense of being in a play. This was deliberate: In those days, restaurants were considered another form of New York theater. It was the height of the ‘80s, when New York was known as Fun City. In retrospect, it’s a bit astounding how decadent the party truly was. Each person at the table had had sex with at least two other people at the table; at least six people had cocaine in their pockets. Everyone smoked. No one was worried about the tab. I’m sure I wore something sequined and fantastic, because I remember feeling so happy that night.”

I AM NOT DOING THIS. AM I A FAILURE?

Though actually I totally could wear something sequinned. And I’ll construct the social graph of tomorrow night after the party.

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Guardian:Countdown to big birthdays: how it feels to be on the cusp

NOW THE SCIENCE BIT. LISTEN CAREFULLY:

“The physical symptoms of ageing don’t suddenly escalate when the clock strikes midnight on your birthday. And there’s no objective reason it should feel so much worse to reach a goal – to still be single against your will, say, or not to have bought a flat – the moment your age flips from 29 to 30.

Yet frequently it does”

Oliver Burkeman reports on research that shows you’re more likely to have an affair, run a marathon and commit suicide in birthday years that end in '9’, in some desperate attempt to tackle your increased awareness of your own mortality.

Yay!

Citation:'People search for meaning when they approach a new decade in chronological age’, Alter & Hershfield 2014, PNAS 111(48)

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NYMag:The Power of 29: An Ode to Being Almost 30

This is the pep talk worth reading:

“My 29th year was when things started to click for me, personally and professionally. I finally found the courage to quit a job I’d long hated and leave a city I liked even less. I was still working really hard, but felt like I was finally gaining some traction. It was around age 29 that the number of fucks I gave about other people’s opinions dipped to critically low levels.”

[…] Writer Alice Munro once described your early 30s as “an age at which it is sometimes hard to admit that what you are living is your life.” I think that’s hard at any age. What gets easier with each passing decade, I suspect, is not comparing yourself to how other people are living their lives. As I age, I fully intend to give fewer and fewer fucks about how I’m supposed to be, or when I’m supposed to accomplish certain things. It frees up head space for the sort of creative thinking I’d rather be doing.

Here’s to that.