International Association Of Independent Journalists Inc.

[Maurice Ali]

Turning Fifty!


By Maurice Ali


After all the commotion of the last week before I turned fifty, I had hardly any time to notice my birthday or think about it.....

Perhaps that was a good thing as 50 is another of those defining moments in our lives. I think back on my life and what those birthdays meant. 19 was important as I was no longer a teenager. 28 for me but it could be 30 for most as you were no longer a youth: "Don't trust anyone over thirty!" That was also the time when we began to lose our creativity. Forty was another moment and now fifty.....

Ultimately 28 and fifty were the big ones. 28 because my creativity - as freakish as it was - was something that really defined me. Even at 18 I had research how much time I had left and when it would leave. I have piles of pages archived of stuff I came up with that I could follow up later. What a time. At night I would polish off three novels or two textbooks. It is strange what kind of man I was back then. The creativity is gone now. It did not disappear all at once or gradually fade away. Its went like how most athletes feel it: Good days and bad days. When it started to go I would have a bad day and then another string of good creative days. Then equal bad day and good days. Then more bad days and some good days and finally only bad days. The interesting thing about it is that when I had a good day, I was as good as ever, it was an all or nothing thing.

It was gone for good sometime in the nineties. I remember the rare occasions I would get creative and rush to write down things. Now it is just a faint memory. After school and my brief creative stint, I tried to start a family, and it ended in divorce. Then started about seven years of searching for something to define myself, and then Fortress. Fortress as in trying to interact with society in a positive way. These last six years went in slow motion I have done and experienced things I never would have thought possible. For example today I was listening to a song I created, listening on my Blackberry and was enjoying it (a BUTTONZ song). That was another "Twilight Zone" moment.

Everything I have done at Fortress was in a strange way fate. If I had a family, I would never have spent the money and time to do this; it would have been better spent on my family. But I have no family, what I have is the education and experience and talent to do what I am doing here. The job finds the man, not the other way around.


I guess what I am trying to say is that we have life choices and are stuck with them. You can't have it all..... And you only have one chance and the opportunity is gone before we think it is. So really, my course is set and I can not stray from it.

I spent my birthday working and taking a break and visiting some old haunts. That defining moment took a week to set in.


So what do I make of passing the 50 mark? Well it makes you hesitate more before starting anything new. That is one good thing about starting Fortress and all the other organizations in my early forties. I would never have started any of that stuff now. Just over a week from that defining day and I am already contemplating my ultimate destiny and what my options are. Turning 50 means you can't put your future in the back of your mind and deal with it later; it is here and now! Family responsibilities and - though it is getting pushed back by simple demographics - even semi-retirement is a constant thought now when planning things. What is great for me is the fact that things are humming away at all levels of this organization. There is no thought about closing down anything here. We just need to be very cost efficient, as always.....

In the end I think I could not have done things any other way. You have these windows of opportunity and they only open if you meet certain criteria. I am the right man for this job so I take it just that little bit more seriously. There is uncertainty and the money is always a constant worry. But we are all dead in the end anyway and what about the money and hassle then. What about it then?

Well they say we may end up living to 100 so I can still kid myself and say I am only half way there.....