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Letters of eclectic commentary featuring the wit and wisdom of a garrulous geezer and {Dana}, a persistent hallucination and charming literary device.
"Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans." -Alan Saunders
Dear Gentlereader,
Once upon a time, a garrulous geezer set out to write a series of "cheat sheets" for his grandkids (the Stickies), and anyone else who might be interested. The idea was to pass along an old dude's helpful hints on how to go about living a life on planet Earth for three score and ten or twenty.
According to Merriam-Webster, garrulous means given to prosy, rambling, or tedious loquacity, as well as pointlessly or annoyingly talkative. While I could easily make a case that the use of the word loquacity in this definition is an oxymoron, given that...
{Stop!}
Thanks, Dana. Relatively recently, I tried again, and managed to complete Cheat Sheet 1. I've worked on part two for several weeks now, and despite numerous rewrites, I can't seem to climb out of the literary ditch I fell into, and it's become clear to me that a good Samaritan isn't coming.
It's time to execute plan B.
That is to say, to stop throwing good money after bad, and move on for the sake of my mental health. If you're a fellow geezer/gezzerette, you're likely aware that Medicare is highly concerned that we may be subject to the "mental health crisis" that many people think a lot of our fellow Americans are having.
While I stand behind the thoughts and notions expressed in C.S.1, which are rather broad and general in nature, I got carried away with specific thoughts and notions when trying to continue the series. It's finally dawned on me that my biweekly column is where I should explore specifics; in fact, it's what I've actually been doing for several years now anyway.
Suffice it to say, my cheat sheets concept is officially cancelled with the approval of the corporate office.
{Biweekly? I thought you only published every other week, not twice a week. Did I miss a memo?}
Nope, it's still every other week. The English Language Police Department's guidelines state that the word for twice a week is semiweekly, although they admit semiweekly and biweekly are commonly used interchangeably, and that you need to spell out exactly what you mean when you use either word.
{As your daughter and her friends used to say, what-ever! Can we move on, please?}
In her defense, she and her friends were teenagers at the time, as for you...
{Why don't you kiss my...}
You don't have one, and hey, this is a more or less family-friendly column, don't make me rat you out to the blue-haired ladies in the HR department.
{Are you talking about ladies of a certain age or blue streaked lefty ladies?}
Deck cleared, here's some unsolicited advice, boys and girls. Even if you've unfortunately been born into a wealthy family, which luckily is not a problem for either my daughter or my grandkids...
{Wait-wait-wait, unfortunately born into a wealthy family?}
Yup. That's as bad as achieving fame and/or fortune prior to reaching the age of 25 or so, by which time the average H. sapien has (more or less) achieved physical and mental maturity according to science.
Personally, I think 30 is a more realistic number. When I was a callow yute, the saying, "Don't trust anyone over 30," officially credited to one Jack Weinberg (now 85), was in vogue. Nowadays, I think the opposite is true; I view anyone under the age of 30 with distrust. Full disclosure, I'm a geezer who tends to look askance at everyone under the age of 50.
H. sapiens, like diamonds and gold, require processing/polishing before achieving maximum brilliance.
If you're cursed by being born into wealth, unless you're blessed with parents with the inclination and time to go to the trouble of getting across to you that this ain't normal, that life for most people involves endless struggle and compromise just to get through the day, there's a good chance you might not know what life is really like for most people.
The same thing holds for those unfortunate enough to achieve fame and fortune prior to physical and/or psychological maturity.
{Are you trying to say that young rockstars, popstars, and "influencers"...}
Yes, especially influencers, not that there's a shortage of older influencers that... never mind, that's a whole other column.
{You dodged a digression!}
Life being life, we're all subject to finding ourselves out and about one day, minding our own, when life jumps out from behind a rock and sinks its teeth into our bum. If you haven't been properly "processed/polished," and this also applies to the spoiled spawn of people of modest means, the bite could prove to be ultimately fatal rather than merely requiring yet another band-aid.
Irregardless of whether you suffer the curse of being a member of the Lucky Sperm Club, suffer under the yoke of the equally awful curse of childhood fame and fortune, or are just another Joe or Joan Bagadonuts (whatever your preferred pronouns), you need to look yourself in the eye and acknowledge that you've got to share the playground with the other kids.
Even if you aspire to spend your life pursuing enlightenment in a cave/monastery/hut/etceterut, personal self-sufficiency is highly unlikely. Even if you can make a pizza that's as good as your favorite pizza parlors, you're not going to be able to round up all the ingredients without interacting with other people.
{Pizza?}
Granted, I'm probably a member of a relatively small cohort of people who can't imagine why anyone would bother getting out of bed in a world without pizza, but the example still serves to illustrate how dependent we H. sapiens are on other H. sapiens.
If you're (more or less) normal, you've been dealing with the leader/follower/sharing/etcetering thing since you were two years old. You've (hopefully) learned that, although if reality made any sense, your fellow humans would submit to your tyranny and do as they're told, life ain't like that unless you're a successful dicktater, like the Pooteen or Little Rocket man, for example.
If you didn't, there's a good chance you may be about to be locked up somewhere. That is to say, if you failed or dropped out of socialization school, or worse yet, no one even enrolled you, we boring Normies will be forced to deal with you, and vice versa, for the rest of your and our lives.
Warning: many of your fellow H. sapiens don't suffer from suicidal levels of empathy. So, as my late wife, Ronbo, used to say, get a grip.
Colonel Cranky
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