On Getting Old…

How come when your a kid, all you can think about is growing up, but when you finally grow up, you wish you could be a kid again?  I think it’s irony just busting us over the heads.  As  kids, we want the freedom and responsibility of making all of our own decisions, and we see adulthood offering this to us.  Then, when we finally get there, we realize that true freedom was an illusion and that responsibility sucks; but by then, it’s too late to do anything different because we are, after all, adults. And it’s not like we could have done anything about it anyway, right?  There has not yet been invented a hormone that slows the aging process to the point that we could all live a perpetual childhood.  Besides, I don’t think our parents would want to take care of us forever… and if our parents had access to the magical fountain of youth, we may never had been born.  Oh sweet irony… thy true name is growing-up.

I run into people who disagree with my desire to go back to childhood.  I feel sorry for them.  They didn’t have enjoyable childhoods, and someone needs be held accountable.  Childhood is meant to be a magical time in our existence, and anyone who denies us that portion of our life has committed an atrocious affront to not only the children and the adults those children become, but also to everyone who loves children.  A child who suffers a horrid childhood leaves a scar on humanity.

So, you may be wondering, why is true freedom an illusion?  Are you doing what you want to do, when you want to do it?  Do you show up someplace because that is when you want to show up, or because that is the time someone else has arranged for you to show up?  Do you only deal with people you find pleasant, or are there times when you have deal with people who are less than pleasant… and are you dealing with them by choice, or because someone else has told you that dealing with these unpleasant people is required of you?  What time do you get up in the morning?  Are you getting up at that hour because that is when you enjoy waking up, or has someone else set your agenda?  We are all really nothing more than indentured servants.  Even if you are self-employed, you are answering to someone else (customers, clients, vendors, advertising sales people,  employees; whoever is involved with the generation of your income).  We live by the rules of someone else in an attempt to gain a sense of real freedom at some point in the future after our servitude (retirement? death?)  There is no true freedom as an adult in this life.  Here we are, in the “greatest nation” on the face of the planet and we never can even really own our own property.  Oh sure, you can pay off your mortgage.  Do you really think you own that property after your mortgage is paid off?  Really?  Well, if you really believe that, try this: after your mortgage is paid off, try not paying property taxes.  Really, see what happens.  See who really owns that property.  It’s not you.  Freedom is an illusion.

“Well,” says the gung-ho simpleton who you often see commenting on blogs and articles all over the Internet, “welcome to life!  Quit your bitching, grow a pair, suck it up and do what you have to do.  No one said life was fair!”  I love people who leave comments like this, and by “love” I mean “hate with every ounce of my being”.  There are people out there who question the way things are and are looking for a better way, but they don’t fall into the mindless conformity that has become life in the USA: you know, work, die and pay taxes.  Because they are looking outside of the box, they are “different”, and they make people uncomfortable, so they just need to shut up and conform.  Ahhh… life it too short for that, my brainwashed friends.  I’m sure the taxpayer-fed government loves your attitude, but I do not.

Wow… I think my rant just went off on a rant?!?  Government sucks, but that isn’t where I meant to head with this post, so let’s try to get it back on track, m’kay?

Becoming an adult leads to more than just the loss of childhood innocence and dreams.  Becoming an adult leads to, well, getting old.  It’s kind of a strange trade-off; you gain more responsibilities and much more is expected of you, and you have less and less energy to tackle these responsibilities and expectations.  It really kind of bites.  Adults (especially those with small children) can often be heard complaining, “If I had half as much energy as my kids, maybe I could actually keep up with them…or… think of what I could accomplish!”  And everybody laughs at the age-old joke.   The sad thing is, the joke is not funny; the joke is reality.  Youth really is wasted on the young.  Our bodies get weaker and our minds begin to slip.  The first memories we start to lose are those from childhood, which is sad, because those memories of our own childhood innocence can help us trudge through our adult lives.  First, memories start to get a little fuzzy, kind of like watching an Andy Griffith re-run on a really staticy channel.     You kind of know what’s going on, because you’ve seen it before, but there are parts you just can’t catch because the static is too bad, and you feel kind of gypped.  The older you get, the more memories turn to bad re-runs, and before you know it, the oldest are lost forever.

Okay, maybe I’m being a little too harsh.  Our minds are kind of like computers, and maybe stating that certain memories are “lost forever” is a little melodramatic.  Maybe it’s kind of like that thingie you downloaded off the Internet and saved a few years ago and you just can’t remember where on your hard drive you saved it.  You know it’s there somewhere, and you search every file and folder where you have saved stuff in the past, you just can’t locate that stupid thingie!  Maybe our minds are like that.  Maybe we just need to place an occasional call to tech support to help us relocate those memories.  But, for the love of Pete, don’t actually call tech support of the company who provides your Internet service!  Finding files on your computer that you downloaded from the Internet isn’t even the responsibility of your ISP’s tech support department.  The last thing I need is someone accusing me of starting a trend of tech related calls for people with fading memories!  “Tech support” is a metaphor, people.  I know that explaining this seems silly, but I  have taken tech support calls.  Don’t ever underestimate the ignorance of your fellow man 🙂