It might not be apparent in looking at me now, but I used to know exactly what was going on. Why, I remember being 18 years old and being absolutely convinced that, for instance, not only would I never gain weight, but I would never ever have bad breath, stretch marks, or cellulite.
I would never spank a child.
I would never be caught up in the work-bill-work-bill cycle.
I would never know – personally or Biblically – a Republican.
Since then, of course, I’ve gone to do/be/do/be/do, in the words of Frank Sinatra, all of those things.
I’m not ashamed. I’ll do it again! What are you looking at?! You don’t know me!!
Or maybe you do. Because I suspect that I am – gasp! – quite commonplace in some of these confessions…
For example: Love. Oh, you shoulda asked me about it years and years ago. I knew all about love! I knew so much I could yammer on about it for absolute hours!
And now?
Now I’m aware of how very many variations of love there are.
And not just the physical variations that would have been at the front and center in my youth. (Please see earlier post on my dirty mind. Thank you.)
And how about my recent bout with technical inflammation? You know, the one where my computer starts making ridiculous demands (Disable my cookies! Reboot me! Let me show you how to get discount pharmaceuticals delivered to your door in a plain brown wrapper!) and eventually slows to a pace designed to make me think of taking up subsistence farming and checking into all this fuss I’ve been hearing about the Mennonites…
They’ll have a place for me, won’t they?
It’s funny. In a stretch of unpaved reality just north of the Mobius strip, I’ve come to realize the more I know, the less I understand, and the more I understand, the less I know.
It’s making me dizzy, just thinking about what I thought I knew, what I used to know, and what I don’t know yet...
And so I’ll stop.
If at 40 I realized how ridiculous I was at 30, what do you suppose I will realize at 50?
Maybe it's best I wait on the speculation there.
I'm still pretty sure I know what's going on.
About Bob Dylan
5 days ago
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20 comments:
Absofrickinlutely true, Pearl! At this rate, I am going to be truly brilliant when I hit 100.
Hey Pearl! Ah yes, this feels familiar.
"I’ve come to realize the more I know, the less I understand, and the more I understand, the less I know."
I wrote about this a while ago - ANOTHER OUTBREAK OF THREES (http://bit.ly/bT390G - though yours was definitely more amusing.
Indigo
Pearl. You are so funny on your way to wise. It sounds like you are already wiser than I was at 40. This is, quite simply, an excellent and thoughtful post, especially so in it's brevity. And levity.
Oh, now that's a familiar feeling alrighty! I'm nearing 50 and pretty sure I know less and less and the years blur by. By 60, I should be a blithering idiot (again!).
At 50 you just don't care how ridiculous you've been. You work on being even more ridiculous! I am very good at it!
I feel ya, Pearl. At a slim 18, I was never going to gain weight, never leave New England, and never inherit my family's puffy, dark eye circles. Well, here I sit, large and in charge in Minnesota looking like I just got in a bar fight with my puffy, baggy eyes. With that said, I agree that 40's are way better than those previous decades! TOWP
Great post. The do/be line is genius.
*Plentymorefishoutofwater - One Man's Dating Diary*
Pearl, there are yet more horrors to come.
Trust me on this.
Tomorrow is always the doorway to a new awakening. If only I actually knew what I once thunk I knew.
Just wait until you're 80 Boy oh Boy ! Life is rocking ! You can get away with so much because so little is expected of you !
"In a stretch of unpaved reality just north of the Mobius strip" - that is just GOOD writing.
What CCC of C said.
Hilarious, Pearl. I know exactly where you're coming from.
Haha...that was one of my realizations in my 30s, that the older I am, the less I actually know. Now in my 40s I just go with the flow. Being clueless about some things is not as bad as I thought it would be.
The really neat thing is that even though you may realize how much you don't know, the younger people don't know it. So, just keep faking it!
I was much smarter in my 20's... or so I thought. Now I'm wiser.
Yeah, that do/be/do/be/do observation is fabulous.
Bob Dylan: I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.
May it be ever thus.
Oh so true..it seems every few years I look back and think that I was a dumbass a few years ago. Now of course I realise that...well...Im a dumbass!
I gave up trying to work 'love' out a long time ago, seems everyone's definition is different..and can change at the drop of a hat.
It's so true! I've always kept a journal, and I feel like it was a different person writing back when I was 18/19... my understanding/beliefs of The Facts Of Life have changed so much (and I'm only).
Thanks for adding me to your blogroll, Pearl! Roll up! Roll up!
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