Every now and again I think about me, yeah, ME, being the "older generation". Ya know, that scares me. When I was a kid growing up, there were always old guys around who knew the ropes. Whenever I had a question, some older guy was around who had done that, been there, and knew how.
Well, these days all the older guys are hard of hearing. And, even after shouting the question fourteen times, until it is understood, it's real easy to see from the answers they give that even more of the gray matter has disappeared from between their ears than has vanished from that same space in my head. That means, fellow travelers, My Time Has Come. I'm 'sposed to be the old guy who has all the answers.
The only problem with this is I haven't yet read all the questions. No way am I prepared to take the test. If you ask me how to build a functioning sewing machine cabinet from a pile of wood - I'm the MAN. But, ask me how the hell to replace the children in Washington DC who run this nation with responsible adults and I haven't a clue.
Ask me how to plant and harvest row crops. I can help with that. Ask me how to keep a crook from becoming the President of a Too Big To Fail investment bank and I'll say "Uh...Uh. I donno." I'll say that after you've asked fourteen times; first I'll pretend to be hard of hearing like the old folks in my own life.
From everything I've been able to see and learn, it's all BS. All of it. The only thing that matters is that you can get up in the morning, and that you have a very special someone with whom to share the new day. And, that you do a good job of the tasks you are given on this day, the one you have now. I've gotten old enough to realize we're all stumblin' through this life we have. Doin' the best we can.
And, it doesn't matter one bit if we're stumblin' through as a bank teller or President of these here United States of the USA. We're all just stumblin' through. That, my friend, is even more scary than realizing I'm the old guy.
Nobody, not the guy on the corner with the sign advertising he'll work for food, not even the President of this vast nation nor all his men, has a stinkin' clue.
"And, it doesn't matter one bit of we're stumblin' through as a bank teller or President of these here United States of the USA. We're all just stumblin' through. "
ReplyDeleteThat's what the old guy is supposed to know. It's a rare knowledge. Most people are looking for some almighty hero to trust so they don't have to think, even at old age. We know where that leads.
It may not seem like a lot of wisdom, but comparatively, it is.
It must be that my wisdom is more easily seen by an outsider, that is, one outside my own head. These days I'm mostly amazed and confused. By everything.
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