I’m With Ya, Brother

Kim DuToit had a post about this. Dude named Marcus Berkmann on how cool it is to be old.

At the age of 62, I have realised that I am living through one of the most purely humorous phases of life, which may be why I laugh out loud if I happen to catch sight of my naked body in a mirror. (Our flat is full of mirrors, possibly as punishment for some long-forgotten crime.)

Although I can find humor in anything, I’m not 62 yet. I laugh so I don’t cry. 60 has been an f-ed up miserable year. Although it seems to be winding up on a high note.

In America, and even more notably in American films, there is the concept of the ‘bucket list’ – the list of all the things ageing people want to do before they kick the bucket. Go skydiving, visit the Grand Canyon, have unprotected sex with a ladyboy in Bangkok, that kind of thing.

What a waste of time. Getting older is not about embracing life’s adventures, it’s a slow and orderly retreat from them. It’s about not doing what other people want you to do but which bores you silly.

There should be only one item on the bucket list, which is ‘tear up bucket list’.

Amen. Women my age, most notably Herself, seem obsessed by travel. Telling them that the dough they’d spend to travel would be better spent elsewhere, most notably saving it. There’s a wrapup to one of the seasons of “An Idiot Abroad” where Karl tells it like it is – “…the world’s a grim place…”

And much of it is. Certainly nearly every 3rd world tourist trap. Hell, I’ve been to London twice. I’m glad my company paid for it. I wouldn’t pay as much as they paid me to see it. And keep in mind, I’m in budget, workingman hotels in out of the way cities like Winchester and Pool. A lot of it looks like here. London looks like any other big city. Heathrow is it’s own special circle of hell.

What a boomer thing, pissing your money away on pointless travel. “It’s about not doing what other people want you to do but which bores you silly.” Amen, brother, amen.

Long lunches with friends can only be a good thing, even if we talk endlessly about our aches and pains and demented parents. And rolling home feeling merry at half-past five is definitely an improvement on going back to work and snoozing at your desk. My feeling is that, for all the fears of the future, these are in some ways the best years of our lives. Ambition gone, children grown, pubs and restaurants open and absolutely no need to go to the theatre if you don’t want to: I’m not sure I see any downsides, except those that are undoubtedly to come.
Live in the present, keep life simple, take nothing for granted and never, ever watch daytime TV – unless you feel like it, of course. Rules for life that make complete sense to me, as a fully paid-up member of the young/old

Well, I’m still working. But I get it. I’d rather visit with others than go see this, go do that.

Good piece. It’s where I’m heading.