Midlife has throughout history been a hinge point where such questions come to the fore. We never know when that midpoint will be, but there is often, in a person’s 40s, a constellation of symptoms ranging from mild memory issues and general unease to severe psychological distress, and sometimes such an urge to upend things that in the 1960s, the Canadian psychoanalyst Elliott Jaques named it “the midlife crisis”. The term is now often used as a punchline, especially with regard to men, but, writes Tallis, “the male midlife crisis isn’t really a comedy. It is a tragedy.” His contention is that as most of us live longer, and chase youth ever more intently, the question of how to manage that presumed midpoint – and thus the increasingly long second stage of life – just becomes more urgent.