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.
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.
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44 comments:
You are making me laugh too hard with a severe headache. Now back to more punishment ...
Men of the night are probably more interesting.
Oh, there are things yet to learn.
"Take no thought for the morrow. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." ;-)
I used to think I knew the pulse of the nation till I realized my fingers were on my own wrist. Now all I know is I dont know much.
One of the nicer things about being advanced in years is the ability to switch off - both mentally and physically.
I found if you don't spank a kid enough he grows up to be a Republican but you still have to love him. I think it's the law.
I know nothing.....nothing!!! And I don't give a rat's ... It's too late to worry about it now.
I was told that by my 50's I would learn not to sweat the small stuff and that essentially, it's all small stuff. They were correct. :-) Martini anyone?
I wouldn't go to the Mennonites if you want to avoid computers, I know lots of computer-friendly Mennonites.
Mayhap Old Order Amish instead? You'd look smashing in those black tights and practical shoes!
the older i get, the faster i get older. and the smarter i get, the more i realize how unsmart i am. it's a rotten cycle, really.
i'm perched on the precipice of 50, and i think i'm lost and know nothing. :)
Judging by the pix from this weekend, you know what's going on! Oh yes, you do!
I have changed so much from my teens to where I am now that if I went back in time, my younger self would probably run screaming from my older self, and my older self does likewise when thinking back on the younger self.
It's an amazing thing, this aging process~
That is the EXACT premise of my soon to be self-published second book
"I Used To Be Stupid"
Fortunately if I make it for another 10 years when I look back I won't remember any thing.
The other big insight is how little control you have over things (hint-NONE) and letting go of the need to fix things and people, or even to try and tell them why they're wrong. Good news, you can relax about a lot of things.
Very insightful, my friend. I've found that the older I get (and I've got a couple of decades on you), the more truth I find in the saying, "Never say never," and so I never do. No. Really. I never. :)
I keep hoping I reach the edge of Wisdom Avenue before it intersects with the Boulevard of Senility. That's close to the Mobius strip, isn't it?
Help an old lady across the street, will ya?
I've passed 70 and it's amazing how much more I knew, and was certain of, in previous decades. Maybe it's senility, OTOH, maybe we are passing from stupidity to wisdom?
Daisy's Barbara
I know nothing, but my husband knows EVERYTHING--just ask him!!!
These comments have made me laugh several times. It's a big work day for me, but I had to stop in to tell ya, in the words of my fambly, that I luz ya.
:-)
Happy Monday.
oh it's funny how life has a way of humbling us...well, funny is one word we could use anyway...
We `luz ya`right back.
(Collective "ah" blush smile)
We will always be ridiculous - it's just that eventually we'll run out of time to look back at our most recent foibles. I'm comfortable with that!
It doesn't do to try and maintain a high horse - you'll run out of the hay of hubris eventually, it will abandon you, and you'll have go back to the daily grind at awkward eye height with the rest of the everyday oiks. You might as well not shell out for stable space at all.
I am looking forward to, but not trying to predict, the future-me...this is safer than making emphatic declarations I may be called out on later, plus I may have been a cellulite mule since I was 15; yay for complex carbohydrates!
As you get older you will find you know less and less and that's a good thing since you'll have less to remember then. And eventually you'll only remember where all the public restrooms in your town are, and believe me you will really want to remember that.
When I was a teenager I knew everything. Now that I'm 60 I realize I don't no nuthin'.
The one thing I was sure I'd never do was to turn thirty!!!! And here I sit on the eve of (gulp) FORTY!
I might have to bawl into a pillow. I just don't know myself at all anymore.
Super sense of humor! You say lots of good things about life. Perception certainly changes as we move right along.
Hopefully you will still read this late comment that's far down the list. Pearl, a post containing Sinatra, love, and the Mobius strip could only from a great blogger mind like yours.
In my extensive MN research I may have discovered an non-significant connection to rock-n-roll history. Please review -
http://afcsoac.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-land-of-ice-and-snow.html
I just want to know one thing, why don't you have your own TV sitcom? You are sooo funny.
I agree with several of the comments above; I'll let you decide which ones. Hint: I'm 2 years away from 70!
I agree with several of the comments above; I'll let you decide which ones. Hint: I'm 2 years away from 70!
Ha, boy are you in for a shock. Just wait til you reach 60.
I used to know OH so much. Now? Not so much. But I put on a good show. It wouldn't do to let Hubby and MC know that I'm at a loss because then they would stage a coup and I can't have that!
I used to think "Oh when I'm a mother I'll never do that with my kids". Now I look at other people and say "Whatever works".
See Pearl, the thing is, as our minds age we may forget stuff, but we also develop the brilliance to just let the small stuff go. :)
I used to know it all, but now I have forgotten more than I remember. Not so bad though since I don't have as much to worry about.
I can see the 100-year-old me shaking his head, thinking what a jackass the 90-year-old me used to be. "What was I *thinking*?!" I can hear me say...
Hi Pearl, I'm in a similar cycle, remembering with painful clarity all the stupid things I did, thought and said 10, 20 and (especially) 30 years ago. The one consolation is that I increasingly don't remember stupid stuff from very recent years, but that may be only because I didn't go out much.
In the words of Sergeant Schultz, "I know nuzzink!"
Funny, my sixteen year old son knows it all...
Or so he thinks.
I don't pretend to know it all, but life experience gives me the advantage. Or some other crap I need him to believe.....
At 50 you will realize middle age was fifteen years ago.
heh....so i guess i still got lots to learn eh? i swear i knew something....smiles.
Oh, the words I've eaten over the years--the promises I've broken. I hardly know my 19 year old self!
What my friend Lime said, about live having its ways of humbling you.
And, as a corrolary, I'm fond of quoting Mother Theresa to the effect that, our main task in this life, is to learn what it really means to love. . . (paired with Dostoevsky's line that 'love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing, compared with love in dreams. . .)
Anyway, there's an old saying that I've grown fond of, in my advancing years (56, now) -
When you're 20, you worry about what people think about you.
When you're 40, you don't care what people think about you.
When you're 60, you realize that nobody was particularly thinking about you, after all. . .
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