–It is a standard meal time. A character shrugs, “I’m not that hungry.”

–“I’m starving. This vending machine candy bar and soda will be fine, however.”

–Someone is engrossed in their work. A great deal of time passes. They realize they forgot to eat.

–A spat breaks out over dinner. One party is so offended they lose their appetite completely.

–“More coffee please. I skipped breakfast.”

–Our hero is up all night running, climbing, fighting bad guys. It is certainly hours since dinner. They do not require a snack.

We were watching the video for Hall & Oates’ “Out of Touch” and around the 3:38 mark, Oates does a cartweel. I wondered: what would happen if I attempted a cartwheel? More accurately, I wondered, what injury would I suffer should I attempt a cartwheel?

Factors

Age: Oates was about 36 in the video. I am 41.

Physical conditioning: Oates appeared to be in terrific physical shape. I have decent cardiovascular health but carrying a few extra pounds thanks to genetics, age, non-rockstar lifestyle, and employment working at a computer.

Stature: Oates also appears relatively short for an American male. The undoubtedly accurate website celebheights.com says he’s 5’5″. I am 6′ even. I hypothesize that shorter statures would be advantageous for cartwheels, based on the fact that lots of kids can do them.

Experience

We can expect that one or the other of these theories is true:

1. Hall & Oates and/or their video director conceived a specific vision for the video, which included Oates doing a cartwheel. He was informed of this dramatic choice, got into suitable shape and commenced practice until he was film-ready.
2. He just liked doing cartwheels and in his exuberance for “Out of Touch,” performed one during the shoot.

Either way, Oates was physically and mentally prepared for the cartwheel.

As for me, I have not performed a cartwheel in a minimum of 35 years. But possible I have never completed one successfully. Evolutionary biology being what it is, kid bodies are relatively resilient and I obviously survived whatever hapless cartwheels I may have attempted. I am immeasurably stronger these days and could generate a great deal more momentum, but that’s not necessarily a good thing.

Most Likely Injuries

1. Soft tissue injury, including twisted ankle, sprained knee, ACL tear, etc. (40% probability)

If I recklessly built up the speed to propel my legs upwards over my center of gravity, well, that would be quite an accomplishment. But I am quite sure I wouldn’t know what to do next. Powerful lateral momentum is fundamentally incompatible with knee ligament coherence. Notably so for 40-somethings who already own one kind of joint brace and have contemplated buying others.

2. Nausea/temporary loss of consciousness. (30% probability)

I don’t even like driving on hilly streets.

3. Separated shoulder (20% probability)

Will my arms support my body during the rotation? Well, that is an exciting question.

4. Concussion (10% probability)

Once engaged in the cartwheel, how does one stop? I can imaging just hurtling forward past the standing position, head first, into the beyond.

Additional Damages

Can I ensure my legs will pass directly over my planted arms, continuing on the same plane through a full arc, momentum carrying my torso and upper body back up to the standing position? No, I don’t really think this is anywhere near likely to happen. Anything in a six-foot radius is in significant peril.

Conclusions

Attempting a cartwheel would be a very poor idea. Nevertheless, I would try it on a soft floor, like for gymnastics or the mentally unstable, with both my knees and ankles wrapped tightly in Ace bandages, and no possible witnesses for one mile in all directions, with the exception of a qualified sports medicine professional standing outside the door, where they cannot see me, but are ready to spring into action.

I turned 40 this year. Now I am not even lured by those “Want to feel old?” clickbait things because the answer is no, I do not. It has started to bother me when I hear twenty-somethings claim they are old because they are experiencing their first-ever occasions of being tired before midnight. The gift of middle age is in realizing that there is very little, if any, time left in which you will not be legitimately aged, and no one older than you wants to hear you say you are old. Anyway most of those clickbait things are about trends that came and went after I was already too far beyond trendy to notice, frankly.

The stages of aging as I understand them:

1. You don’t understand things that are cool because you are too young to have any idea what’s happening in the larger social sphere. In a way, very young kids are as cool as they come because they readily embrace trends–every single kid loves some combination of Star Wars, Batman, princesses, and Thomas–and also completely do their own thing. My niece’s favorite activity is belly-flopping off the couch onto a giant beanbag. Had she developed the vocabulary, I feel certain she could discuss the nuances of couch-leaping in crushing detail.
2. You understand things that are cool but can’t do anything about it because your bedtime is 8:00 and you have a life savings of like 6 dollars in nickels. Also Mom says no.
3. You understand things that are cool and engage in them with parental approval.
4. You understand things that are cool and engage in them without parental approval.
5. You understand things that are cool but you find that sometimes you don’t care.
6. You still know what is cool but occasionally there are new cool things that you don’t understand.
7. You start losing track of what is cool.
8. You completely lose track of what is cool.
9. You don’t go to parties anymore. You attend get-togethers. And a major conversation topic is everyone’s changing metabolism. The gathering breaks up around 9pm because everyone is tired.
10. Someone tells you that they don’t call it “cool” anymore, they call it “smibs” or some damn thing.
11. Things you think of as happening last decade actually happened multiple decades ago.
12. Your doctor labels you a “weekend warrior” when you develop achilles tendinitis.
13. You insist that your life experience makes it so that you understand at a more meta-level what is and isn’t cool, and they just say that’s exactly why you don’t have the smibs.
14. No, old dude, let me help you out. You say, something “IS” the smibs. You don’t “have” the smibs.
15. Why do they only sell clothes I want to wear at Sears in that weird alcove near the lawnmowers. That’s not the smibs.
16. Wow is that guy still saying “smibs”?
17. Gradual living degradation of your biological systems.
18. Death etc.

I’m not obsessed with 40, especially. It’s a round number but it’s really just continuing various downward trends that begin sometime in your mid-thirties: which is everything beyond step 7 or so above, plus inexplicable weight gain. Sometime in the last five years I transitioned from healing from injuries in hours to weeks. About six weeks ago I took a weird step off a curb and went down in a faceward sprawl into the crosswalk. The various patches of road rash healed in a week or (except for a badass elbow scar). My back and hip took a few additional weeks to fully sort themselves out. But my left shoulder, the hero who accepted the forceful bulk of the downward plummet, is still screwed up. Mentally, I have transitioned from embarrassed about the clumsiness to acceptance that these things happen to actually feeling lucky I didn’t do something much worse like knock out a tooth or crack my glasses.

I don’t want to be all negative, even though that’s sorta more fun. For every bad thing about early middle age, in my fortunate case there are two good things (I’ll write a happy list at some point). I’d never go back anyway. Being a teenager was terrible and I was lost in my twenties. Though this raises the big open question of if/when I will ever stop thinking of my past self as an idiot. Since I was self-aware I always thought the same thing:

1. Man I was dumb X years ago, I didn’t know anything.
2. Luckily I’ve figured things out now.

Perhaps the great sign of maturity is realizing that you can’t keep pairing these two statements. The person who thought #2 always eventually becomes the person described by #1. It’s just a matter of realizing you are still the dumb one who doesn’t really know anything, just incrementally more than before, and acting accordingly.