Rusted Sky

It sucks. But not in a bad way. And there are things that would suck significantly worse, and not in a good way. I've got my health, I've got all my limbs and all but 8 of my teeth, and fairly good vision. That's a start.

What I think is best, actually, is that along the way I've gained enough perspective to learn just how much I don't know. When you're 20, you know everything, you're sure of everything, and the world would be a GREAT place if folks would just LISTEN to you and implement your ideas.

When you're 30, if you're smart and have been watching how the world works, you start to realize that maybe you're not as smart as you thought you were.

When you're 40, and observant, you start to realize that a lot of the things you thought were great at 20 weren't so hot in retrospect.

And at 50, with perspective, you realize a lot of the things you took as gospel on how the world should work in your twenties and thirties would actually have been severely troublesome if implemented.

(Extreme case in point - all the folks who flirt with the nihilistic idea of taking apart the government and rebuilding it into some "People's Revolutionary Council". Look at France. They've tried it several times, to no great effect. And the liking I had at the time for Randian notions isn't all that much better, or my thinking that the UN could actually solve major world conflicts.)

With age comes wisdom? Perhaps - but it depends on what you'd call 'wisdom', I guess. At this point in my life I realize that it's pretty unlikely I'll ever do something really 'great' - (though Rodin and Picasso were certainly productive in their latter years, as well as Frank Lloyd Wright) - but there's a lot of small things I can do that'll make small impacts, and doing those will end up being whatever legacy I might leave to the world. Being a good husband, being a good father - they're what's important long-term. I'll not be remembered for anything by most of the world a fifty or a hundred years hence, but my son and his children should.

Along the way I've developed a twin sense of both gratitude and regret regarding family and friendship. Unfortunately, certain traumatic experiences I had in high school seem to have somewhat stunted my ability to form new friendships. (I look at Aaron and envy his ability to just connect with someone else his own age - five minutes and it's like they've been friends for life.) It takes time, and a lot of effort to bring myself to a point where I can open up to folks, and as poorly as I do it now I was a lot worse 20, 25 years back. (Many thanks to the folks of Myriad - who've let me open up at my own rate.)

As far as family goes... I'm so grateful to my lovely bride Sue, who sees good things in me that I have no ability to see in myself. (She often says I'm my own worst critic, without justifiable cause. And when she points out to me I'm being irrationally critical, I can then deflect or defuse it.) And many thanks to her wonderful family, who've shown me just how important family actually IS. (My own parents? And brother? Eh. We're getting along a lot better than we were, but nowhere near like Sue's.)

And then there's the little guy. The unconditional love of a child is an amazing, healing thing. I've made mistakes, I've been impatient, but he still loves me and at the end of the day he knows I love him with all my heart.

You know the old Beatles song, "All you need is love"? Well, you need a bit more than that, but without it you warp. But with time and love, you can get straightened out again.

What would I have done differently? Oh, there's a lot. The biggest problem I've had... is fear of various kinds. Hard to recognize, hard to deal with sometimes. Fear keeps you from doing a lot of things you'd like to do. Then there's the things I wanted to do but haven't (for whatever reason) such as learn to fly. But there's always something else that's had priority... And you can probably guess some of the other things from the above paragraphs. I'd also have started saving aggressively for retirement a lot earlier than I did.

But hey - your bad choices are always 20-20 in hindsight.

And if you haven't learned that by the time you hit 50, you're not trying.

J.