In 1964, a documentary film crew conducted interviews with a number of British seven-year-olds of varying class backgrounds. The goal was to follow the children over the course of their lives, checking back in with them every seven years, to see what happened to them. Against all odds, the idea worked, and director Michael Apted—a member of the original film crew—has released films every seven years revisiting the kids. So far, there have been 14 Up, 21 Up, 28 Up, 35 Up, 42 Up, and 49 Up. This month, the latest installment will premiere in the UK: 56 Up.
The documentarians’ initial goal was to assess whether the UK’s class system was eroding, but the project has become much bigger—and more profound—than that. The kids’ initial economic circumstances have affected their lives, yes, but the real fascination of the films has been watching the subjects grow and change (or not change) as people. A boy who’s a spacy dreamer at seven becomes a near-hermit by his 30s, and you wonder whether he’s going to survive. A girl marries young, and shares her mixed feelings about that decision as she grows into middle age. An upper-class boy who’s a priggish snob as a youth opts out of the documentary at 28, then comes back at 35 to share his newfound commitment to social justice.
Inevitably, watching the movies makes you think about your own life. For whatever reason the interval was originally determined, seven years turns out to be a pretty good span of time for life check-ins. It’s not long enough to move entirely from one phase of life to the next, but it’s enough time for big changes to happen: in seven years you can change careers, or meet someone and become married with kids. It’s enough time for your outlook on life to change—but who you are, fundamentally, doesn’t change. Or does it? That’s the central mystery, and fascination, of the Up series.
If you’d interviewed me when I was seven, you would probably have figured I had some kind of quirky career in entertainment ahead of me. I liked to lead neighborhood kids in elaborate pageants—we did the Passion Play, and I was Jesus, with a snow shovel for a cross—and I was a precocious reader who liked to use big words. I hung out mostly with girls, many of whom I had crushes on and would write about in my secret diary. Oh, and I got bullied a lot at school. My career ambition was simply to be famous.
At 14, I still had a flair for the dramatic: I was as much of a theater kid as I could be at a high school with a theater that doubled as a gymnasium, and I’d narrate elaborate mix tapes for my friends and family under my DJ name, “Willy Wilt.” The bullying had become even worse, though—I lived in terror of a burly kid who would stalk me through the halls and shove me against the walls. I didn’t feel like I fit in anywhere, and I wasn’t sure where or when I ever would.
By 21, it would have seemed that I’d found my life’s calling: working with kids. I’d just graduated from college with a degree in early childhood education, I was a popular teacher of summertime preschool science classes, and I was headed for the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The story of my life, you might have guessed, would be that I’d had a lonely childhood myself and was now working to make other kids’ childhood experiences better. At that point I’d still never had a girlfriend, and you might have guessed that I’d end up with a nice kindergarten teacher or something, running an arts-oriented charter school.
Fast-forward to 28, with the documentary crew directing me to walk through Harvard Yard for an establishing shot. I was still at Harvard, by then studying for a Ph.D. in sociology. I’d finally started dating, and I would have talked about an epiphany I had at age 25, when I realized that I had to stop waiting passively for life to decide whether it wanted to reward or punish me. I was living as a tutor in an undergraduate dorm, finally surrounded by the unapologetic nerds I’d always been looking for. Wow, you might have thought, so his life story turned out to be that he just needed to find all the other bookworms! He’ll live happily ever after as a professor.
Surprise! By 35, I’d finished graduate school and left academia, moving back to Minnesota to live near my family even though it meant starting an entirely new career. That career turned out to be arts journalism, and at 35 you would have found me going out every night to plays and concerts, partying like a late-breaking rock star and being given an award for ubiquity by a local magazine. (Cue flashback to 14-year-old Jason, alone in his room writing new rules for the Star Wars roleplaying game.) I’d had a couple of major relationships that were very different from each other: one with a Harvard medical student, and one with a Minneapolis woman referred to by one of my friends as a “hipster hottie.” Each of those relationships had ended for its own reasons, and at 35 I was single and having the time of my life.
Where will I be at my next seven-year check-in? At 35, my future life path would have seemed as full of possibilities as it was at age seven. At 42, will I still be in Minnesota? Will I still be working as a journalist? What will my life look like? I couldn’t have told you, and I still can’t tell you—but it might count as a sneak preview that when I turned 35, I still hadn’t even met anyone with whom I’d later start this blog. I had an idea I might get back into acting, but I would have been surprised to learn that I’d be writing, directing, and co-starring in a play at the 2012 Minnesota Fringe Festival. Random people now come up to me and say, “Are you Jay Gabler?”…so I’m going to go ahead and count that as having fulfilled my childhood dream to be famous. Maybe by age 42, I’ll have a verified Twitter account. Big dreams, I know.
Where will you be at your next seven-year check-in?
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