@Aedes,
I think you're right, Aristoddler: the turn (or return) to adolescent behavior is oftentimes a symptom of this midlife crisis. However, I would like to add that this behavior is also a key to understanding our
modern crisis. During other times, an individual might have turned to his God or gods for sustenance, for comfort in the cold evening harbinging the long night. In the face of death, men often turned to promises of immortality and peace; and although, like the vague premonitions of the oracles, these promises were questionable, even irrational, they nevertheless served to fend off mortal fears.
Those pitiful mortals of today who lack gods--what illusions can they wrap themselves in? What irrational wellsprings of hope can they tap? The inherent--yet untaught--spirituality and poetry of youthful passion is that last dying ember of religion, which continues to glow in even
this barbaric age. A sense of beauty, truth, and goodness naturally accompany the budding sexuality of a healthy teenager. Yet if our society does not give a
damn about beauty, truth, or goodness (and it
doesn't) then youthful passion will fade out, only to be replaced with a cold, colorless sense of "reality." Alas, the reality principle has proven REAL!
In the rush to relive his youth, your coworker seeks atonement with the gods. But they along with his society abandoned him years ago when he became a man. I have compassion for him and nothing but contempt for our stereotyped modern ideas, which kill so many of us before we die, depriving us of lives worth living.