I've heard it said that King Solomon wrote Song of Songs in his youth, Proverbs in his middle years, and Ecclesiastes near the end of his life. This makes sense. Song of Songs is passionate, poetic, erotic, full of youth and vigor. Proverbs is a solid compilation of practical wisdom concerned with the nuts and bolts of living. And Ecclesiastes is the legacy capstone of the wisest man who ever lived and has experienced everything life has to offer and realizes in the end that it is all completely meaningless.

I had a young man respond to my Crisis article, Why Your Catholic Men's Group Will Eventually Fold, with an article of his own. While my reflections in that piece I wrote came from a place of mid-life disillusionment, I did not think the observations were out of line; in fact, the article seemed to have struck a nerve with various spin-offs and responses, including the one cited above in which the author (in his early twenties, I gathered) was in his "Song of Songs" phase, full of youthful idealism. I probably would have shared his sentiments, trying to make a name for himself, twenty years ago as a younger man.

But entering mid-life is a real bear. I feel like I'm at the bottom of the U-curve of happiness, hoping that the next decade will be on the upswing. My thirties--my "Proverbs phase" of the proverbial hustle-n-grind decade--now over, the specter of Solomon in his final chapters of life are peeking around the corner. 

All things are hard: man cannot explain them by word. The eye is not filled with seeing, neither is the ear filled with hearing.

I don't even know where the malaise comes from. It's not depression. It's not even necessarily discontentment. I have everything I could possibly want--not in terms of riches and wisdom, but in my wife and kids, a job that allows me to provide, and my faith. I haven't accomplished anything great. My name will be easily forgotten. But again, that is why the wisdom of Solomon in Ecclesiastes is canonical--it's not depressing or negative--it's simply the reality of the truth. Vanity of vanity, all is vanity. And I still have a lot of years left to live.

What is it that hath been? the same thing that shall be. What is it that hath been done? the same that shall be done.

In terms of the riches of human capital, I'm probably better off than most. There are a lot of guys I could call up in a time of physical need, and a strong community that we can lean on. Despite all this, I still get hit with these periodic waves of loneliness in which I realize my wide swatch of friends lacks the depth of love and fidelity that you see between David and Jonathan in 1 Samuel. 

Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: Behold this is new: for it hath already gone before in the ages that were before us.

I'm resentful of the 'busyness' I see all around me, that everyone over schedules themselves and no one has time set aside to be wasted. I get resentful too that I'm always the one calling or texting people, but if I pull back on that and go quiet, so does my phone. I check my email hoping someone will write me, just for the sake of writing, but no one does. I get resentful of the guys that never seem to need to go beyond work and their families...why can't I be more like that? I'm tired of pouring into things, projects, people, when in the end it's all just vanity of vanities. 

There is no remembrance of former things: nor indeed of those things which hereafter are to come, shall there be any remembrance with them that shall be in the latter end. 

I'm also lonely. I have no Jonathan, and I'm no David either. I haven't learned how to be alone that well. I wish I was more like my wife--the fact that everyone wants to be friends with her, but she just wants to be alone. In my mid forties now, new things don't come easily--not friends, not skills, not reading new books or learning new things--just a weighted blanket of ennui. Even if I was granted a Jonathan in my life, I would not be worthy of him because of my self-centeredness. 

Because In much wisdom there is much indignation: and he that addeth knowledge, addeth also labour.

I pray sometimes that God will just take me sooner than later, that I don't live to be old, that I can just retire from life early, meet my Maker ahead of schedule. I worry about my wife, and my kids growing up without a father. I'll keep living for them, as long as the Lord wants from me. But it's wearisome. I'm living the cliche of the crisis, but without the accouterments. No sports car, no desire to be unfaithful, no heavy drinking, no wild shake-up. I'm sure some people would miss me when I'm gone. But then they'd get over it, of course. 

So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.