By shelz.
There are a boat load of people writing about the chaos and confusion that is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness these days. Most of the writers are of the extra green sort; fumbling through their juvenile ideas, trying to make sense of it all and aspiring to change the face of the planet into a smiley. Of course those who came before are ripe for pot shots. The world is pretty shitty right now and well, old people, your lethargy is to blame. The window on your dreams has slammed shut. Now go sit in your rocker and watch a real generation get something done.
Sure.
Youth supplants the aged. It’s a pretty iron clad process that everyone understands. The making-it-happen (whatever it is) time frame is short since 21 year olds won’t be 21 forever, but the histrionics involved with every generations attempt to make country time out of the previous generations lemony chaos sometimes gets things accomplished. There’s a certain anxiety ridden work ethic that invades youngsters because the true meaning of life has to be mapped out before senility sets in.. which is somewhere around 40.
After that your ideas are stinky and staid; products of a lifetime of force-fed ideology and principles accepted due to your inability as an old dog to learn new tricks. You haven’t rolled with the tide so you got left behind, still buying stamps and writing checks at Wal-Mart. You’ve accepted the world as it is, taken your spot as a cog in the machine and bought a great new recliner from which you watch The Price Is Right. That Drew Carey got funnier after he lost that weight, right?
Wrong.
The churning burning desire to make a difference doesn’t go away once you take life’s training wheels off. You still want to write the next great American novel or thwart tyranny or create the first motor vehicle that runs on salt water.. (Plaese. Someone. Make. That. Happen) Yeah, your parents sometimes made it sound like the mundane rules the older mind, but being a beacon of truth and innovation sometimes takes a back seat to balancing a check book. There’s only so much you can think about at one time. Believe it or not, as priorities nest and the stork pays you one or ten visits, that back-burnered aspiration still calls.
Cutting your own path through the turmoil, plus developing and guiding another on their own way takes a lot of skill grasshopper. Try it sometime. Then after you determine it’s a bit much for you because you still have branches on your own trail, call your mom and say thank you. Don’t worry. She’ll wait.
Years from now, when you finally find yourself taking a break from saving the world to typitty type on some financial planning website, deciding whether to go pre tax or post tax on an IRA that you will surely cash in before it matures to spend the money on labwork for some mystery arthritic condition that turns your fingers into snausages which is amazingly enough aggravated by all that typity typing you’ve been doing….. inhale. Not only will you learn the definition of full circle, you might also learn the significance of confusion. It probably won’t spark the next creative renaissance but it will make you feel like the smartest person in the work when you figure it out.
Or better yet, check out grandmas Medicaid Part Z rules and regulations. If confusion and chaos is what truly sparked creative fire, then every inspired movement in this country would be led by 65 year olds. In other words, there’s no need to burn the candle of optimism at both ends young ones. It will always be with you, but it’s when you’re able to balance desire and obligation that you will see your contribution to change clearly. Then you can get to the real work of making the world a better place and I think that happens … hmm…somewhere around 40.
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