60 Cycles

 

In preparing to write this exciting installment, I did what any brilliant writer does: I went outside on the porch for a smoke to procrastinate.  For those who are not writers, it is difficult to understand just how painful this process is, and to what lengths we will go to in avoiding it.

Anyway, I got out on the porch and realized I had finished my last pack, so I went back in to fetch a fresh one out of my office.  When I got to my desk, I thought I'd kill two stones with one bird, and plugged in my cell phone and went back outside.

When I got there, I realized that I hadn't fetched a new pack, cursed loudly, and went back inside.  On the way, I stopped by the kitchen to tell my wife the story thus far, and laugh at my obvious descent into senility.

Then I went back outside.

I cursed again, choosing more colorful terms to express myself.  I even made up a couple of new bad words, which I need to write down before I forget them.

I went back to my office and finally remembered to grab a pack of distraction.

As I stood on the porch, fumes circling me like ghostly vultures, I tried to drown out the obscene racket coming from the local mosque.  The cantor is nine years older than God, and sounds like a rutting bullfrog with strep throat fighting larynial cancer, while sticking a finger down his throat trying to scrape nodules off his vocal chords.

And he keeps the amp cranked to 11, while swallowing the mic.  Ugh!

And that's on a good day.

I was trying to drown out the racket by thinking of my impending 60th birthday.  I took a long, sullen pull from my cigarette, as I had done nearly every day for the past 55 years.  I looked up at the Moon, now well above the horizon, as I had done nearly every night for the past 58 years.

I wondered if I had gained any insight, a nugget of wisdom distilled from nearly 2/3rds of a century.

Nope.  Not really.  The cupboard was bare.

So I procrastinated some more, lit another fag, and released a fog of blue-gray phantoms.  Life, it seems, is a long, slow process of forgetting everything I was absolutely certain about 40 or so years ago.  It's a degredation of vision from pure blacks and whites, into infinite shades of gray.

One positive aspect of growing old is losing debilitating empathy.  I am nearly to the point where I no longer give a shit what anyone else thinks or feels.  Not entirely.  I guess I've narrowed it down to a highly selectinve group of folks.  The rest of the world can piss off.

It's very liberating.

Another positive aspect of aging is that, sometime in the past couple of years...not really sure when...testosterone released its death grip on my mind.  I can finally think clearly without the need to tailor everything into attracting potential mates that has consumed virtually every waking moment, and most sleeping moments too, for the past 48 years.  This is likely related to the not giving a shit mentioned previously.

Other than these weirdly random pains in weirdly random parts of my body at weirdly random times, I'm reasonably healthy for all the wear and tear.  Despite my wife's constant worry, my blood pressure and cholesterol are nearly textbook perfect.  I don't generally get sick, though the occasions that I do are doozies.

The last episode was about seven years ago.  I managed to contract typhus, amoebic dysentery and dengue fever all at the same time.  I spent 20 days in the hospital alternately freezing, roasting and oozing blood from every pore.  It was very exciting.  

People I hardly knew were stopping by to bid farewell and my wife's church group formed regular prayer circles around my death bed.  To this day, I maintain that it was cheeseburgers that pulled me through.  Had I stuck to the bland, pale food substitutes the hospital forced on me, I would be worm meat by now.

So what does one do when one faces 60?  I tried to make a bucket list, but I've done pratty much everything I ever thought would be fun to do, except go to Antarctica - and yes, I've already shopped boat rides out of Tazmania for when the jerk-offs who think they run the planet let us get back to ignoring them.

I wouldn't mind going into orbit, too.  When I was a kid watching the Mercury astronauts letting themselves get shot into the Great Beyond atop ballistic missiles, I thought we'd all be vacationing on Mars by now.  The jerk-offs screwed that up, too.

I've stepped on six continents and lived in six countries.  I've had at least four distinct careers and left some small mark on all of them.  I've launched off the deck of an aircraft carrier in an A-10 fighter jet.  I was allowed 30 minutes in the actual trainer for the astronauts who landed on the Moon.  I've met dozens of people whose names are burned into history - for better or worse.  I've been as deep as 100 meters into the ocean by various means.  I've been a part of one of the largest peaceful crowds ever, and I've been profoundly and incredibly alone for various lengths of time.

I've been a Benedictine and Buddhist monk.  I've midwifed calves, colts, lambs, kittens, and puppies, and I've eaten them.

I really can't complain.  Too much.

So what do I know for sure after 60 years of exploration down here in the materium?

I know that I'm not finished yet.  And I know I don't want to live forever.  Nothing seems more terrifying than living forever.

I hate figs and beets.  I love pate du foie gras on liver biscuits with capers and red onions, but I hate even the thought of fried liver and onions.  I hate crowds and love the desert and mountains.  I hate deadlines and schedules, but I thrive when they are short and the pressure is on.  I hate losing, but winning never seems worth the effort to attain it.  I love learning, but I hate studying.

I'd much rather hear one person I respect tell me "good job," than the empty adulation of throngs.

In the end, I have more beads of sweat than pearls of wisdom.  I suppose that's the way it should be, though.  As any true artist knows, no creation is ever finished.

So I guess I'll just have another smoke and procrastinate some more.  Who knows?  Maybe I'll come up with the perfect line to end this screed.

============================================

Want to support our efforts without a bunch of corporate "guidelines" in the way?  Drop some bits on us:

Bitcoin: bc1qth6drgzcyt7vlxxpvqh6erjm0lmaemwsvf0272
Etherium: 0xf1F04715704dbC5E2e96E047D4aBc22c611B6E86
Ripple: rMSQzLyE3RHacCLwYPADBbq4RHQ71HpCzw
Litecoin: LQeH2i9vMKMNx5WaLjAGaHWjtfhKL6yqCE