Okay, in one sense, I’m not really getting old. \u00a0And in another, I feel I’ve always been old. \u00a0or always felt old, or something like that. \u00a0And perhaps old isn’t really the right word for it. \u00a0Somehow, a seemingly incongruous combination of being arch, crotchety, and phlegmatic all at once sums it up, but doesn’t really do it justice. \u00a0Oh and tired. \u00a0More than a little tired. \u00a0I recall toward the end of college complaining that I felt “tired, in a cosmic way — an unspeakable empty-fuel-tank kind of tiredness, whether I’m having a blast and active or sitting around with a slight buzz, it’s always there”. \u00a0Well, that was all a bit dramatic, which I’ll chalk up to youth, but I didn’t feel young. \u00a0It’s the darnedest thing.<\/p>\n
So here I am at another of these thing that I do from time to time, go off for a couple of weeks in one of my employment capacities, and meet a bunch of folks. \u00a0Most are folks I’m seeing for the first time, and some I’ve met before. \u00a0A very few are people I actually know to some extent, which means that I knew their names when I saw them. \u00a0Not a very high bar.<\/p>\n
And this year, in more than one context, I have found that upon meeting new people, I kind of don;t expect to be introduced, or to introduce myself, and frankly have forgotten how to act just a bit upon that meeting. \u00a0This is because I do not care to meet now people so much, not at random anyway, and all of this stuff that used to seem crucial now just seems random. \u00a0I recall when I was a young smart-aleck imagining that older folks around me might be impressed at the referents, amused at the jokes, surprised at the precocious fellow. \u00a0Slightly older, I suppose I strove\u00a0to be seen as experienced, wordly, wry, or some such thing, and striving also not to seem to strive. \u00a0Now I see the younger folks joking about and I don’t even hear their jokes. \u00a0The whole style of humor has left me, it seems, and I exactly see myself in their shoes, and I’ve heard that joke before, and if I haven’t, I’ve heard one just like it. \u00a0I don’t want to hear their jokes, I don’t want to learn their names, it’s all just a bad television show and I can’t even change the channel. \u00a0It’s not that I have any particular disdain for them or their jokes — it just has nothing to do with me.<\/p>\n
Well, that’s all a bit dramatic as well, so some things change and others do not. \u00a0No doubt I’ll look back on this and chalk it up to the brash style of writing used by those too new to middle-age to know how it goes. \u00a0Except that I see the pattern, and I know I’m just watching the wheel turn, doing the thing to do at this stage because at this stage, it’s the thing to do, and the last stage looks stale and the next one is fresh, and once you see the whole pattern the individual threads are no longer interesting. \u00a0not at this stage of the cycle.<\/p>\n
Next stage: reductionism for dear life. \u00a0Because it’s the little things that make up a life. \u00a0because seeing the whole pattern, you catch glimpses of the far end, and its a finite number of little things between here and there. \u00a0But not yet. \u00a0I’m not there yet. \u00a0Prime of my life.<\/p>\n
Okay, in one sense, I’m not really getting old. \u00a0And in another, I feel I’ve always been old. \u00a0or always felt old, or something like that. \u00a0And perhaps old isn’t really the right word for it. \u00a0Somehow, a seemingly incongruous combination of being arch, crotchety, and phlegmatic all at once sums it up, but doesn’t really do it justice. \u00a0Oh and tired. \u00a0More than a little tired. \u00a0I recall toward the end of college complaining that I felt “tired, in a cosmic way — an unspeakable empty-fuel-tank kind of tiredness, whether I’m having a blast and active or sitting around with a slight buzz, it’s always there”. \u00a0Well, that was all a bit dramatic, which I’ll chalk up to youth, but I didn’t feel young. \u00a0It’s the darnedest … Continue reading