Ivan Aristeguieta Turned 40 & All He's Got To Show For It Is Anxiety & Rollerblades

For Venezuelan-born comic Ivan Aristeguieta, the move into middle age is not unlike his move to Australia. “I feel like this show is a bit of an immigration as well,” he says of his new hour, The Fourth Floor. “Getting old feels exactly the same as moving from a third world country to a first world country. It’s less fun, but it’s more stable.

“When you’re young, you’re unpredictable and crazy. You party hard and you want to get out of trouble by bribing people – that’s very similar to the attitude you have in a third world country in order to survive. In the first world it’s like, ‘Bend your knees, watch your step, put some money in your super,’ and that’s now what I’m worrying about.”

The Fourth Floor, a Venezuelan phrase for entering your 40s, also sees the stand-up struggling with the cognitive dissonance of first world problems. “In Venezuela, I was constantly worried about not being kidnapped or robbed or trying to get medications that I needed to get for my family. I never had anxiety or depression there, and then when I moved to a better place and suddenly I have all this anxiety, it’s like, ‘What the hell? This place is fucking great.’ So on top of the way I was feeling, I was blaming myself for being a whinger. In Venezuela, things are 100 times worse and here I am complaining. So in that sense, it was a double whammy for me.

"So my midlife crisis, instead of buying a Ferrari... I bought rollerblades."

“I went through a hardcore anxiety – I had a couple of anxiety attacks and I lived with constant anxiety for about a year, and it was like a smoke alarm inside my brain. An anxiety attack is like when you burn toast, the alarm goes crazy, but you know when the alarm is running out of battery? That constant, 'BEEP!' that’s like having the anxiety all day.”

Though Aristeguieta has struggled to come to terms with these changes, he says there have been some definite positives to entering this new stage of his life. “I think I’m getting smarter,” he laughs. “I haven’t done anything special like studying or anything and I haven’t read that many books, but I think the whole thing about wisdom in ageing is kicking in. I went to a pub and I saw a burger with three patties on the menu, and young Ivan would’ve had that straight away with extra bacon, but in that moment I thought, ‘Three meats? That’s too much meat.’ 

“The things we do when we’re young, we say, ‘Let’s go travel around the world with a backpack!’ And now I realise I could’ve done that with a suitcase with wheels. The culture shock has been really positive, I like having more sense and not pretending as much. The older you get, the less you pretend... You get old and you give zero fucks about what people think about you. So I’m dipping my toe in that.”

Whatever the case may be, Aristeguieta can still have a bit of fun as he says goodbye to his youth. “I was worrying about my weight and my metabolism, and I got a mortgage recently, and all that was a real worry. So my midlife crisis, instead of buying a Ferrari... I bought rollerblades. So now I go rollerblading down St Kilda Beach with all the other rollerbladers, and I’m just another guy on wheels.”