30?

Even with my shameless talent to generalize I can’t possibly touch in any depth the land marks of the human condition.  There are certainly  bigger moments in one life than specific birthdays but they are moments in themselves.   Of course at 16, 18, 21, 60, 90  even 40 you can have a relatively good idea what one is up to and what is floating about in their heads.

But 30?  30?  Thirty is the wild card birthday.  One may be past their prime in regards to professional football or perhaps run way modeling if you’re a girl yet in most cases you may very well still be in your prime perhaps even just hitting it even though you may begin to feel very old.

One could be  making his first million or reeling from his first catastrophic failure.  One could be close to marriage or close to divorce.  One could be still finding himself or have chosen never to be found.

Hangovers, acid reflux and pulled muscles aside, the world around you makes you feel older than even your body does.   Ones married bros are now out numbering the single and they are getting domesticated like a whipped dog.  The pack is not so much the pack anymore yet usually a haphazard motley band of lone wolves.

The x’s get hitched even your “plan B’s.”  You know the deals you make with friends pertaining to marriage at a certain age.  All joking aside it’s still kinda odd when they become null and void.   “Holy shit, it’s getting to that point eh mate?” you say to yourself in the mirror.

Yet, you can’t let it get to ya right?  You start counting how many actually happy marriages you know of then counting the divorcees and friends who have to visit their kids.

You haven’t settled yet so why settle now? Oh that’s right, your not getting any younger and no one wants to be the old daddy.

Finally, you realize that it’s only gonna get slimmer pickings and you may not be aging all that well yourself.

Whew, lots of contradictory things to chew on no?

Ahhhh, fuck it right?  The independent male has other things to worry about like his career and life in general.   But that’s what makes it harder being the last of the Mohicans.  After you job what else is there? You’re the last.

When you’re alone most of the time and left to your own devices a lot of developing occurs.   Your free to adventure and think aimlessly.   Self introspection, personal challenges and individual successes and failures.   A career bachelor may know himself better than anyone else.   No one to conform to, to lean on , to distract, annoy or comfort.

It’s just you and by the time your 30, you know you.    You know what you like, what you don’t and exactly why.    You know a great many things and are so shocked to find out how little that great many of things really is.

The unfortunate part is that you are getting to an age where you may relate to those younger but they cannot relate to you.  You can only go through a certain amount  of Deja Vu.  Doing the same things, having the same conversations you did when you were that persons age.   When you live at a high throttle slowing down is a bitch let alone reversing.   Your peers have let their brains shut off and are usually pacing around in their cage or on a leash.  ” Domestication does look comfy but they all have that dopey look on their face,” says the wolf.

That history of yours is another thing.  A career bachelor has most likely been up and about and in thirty year has racked up a lot of experiences, how does one bring a new person in their life and expect them to really know you.   They don’t know the lunatic you were in college or high school.  They don’t know the passionate poet, blind renegade or the slightly less cynical and slightly more bright-eyed kid of even a few years prior.

We become encyclopedias rather than books.  Can you translate yourself?  Are you even worth reading?  Cause there aren’t too many worse things than being read half way then put down.

On a good note the domesticated tend to be fat and 1/2 way to a heart attack.   Many bachelors are just as bad, but some don’t get too content and are in appearances in good shape.  As time goes on other things come in that make a married man live longer than the wolf.   Yet at 30 you can be in the best shape of your life because you have the time.    You have the time to work as much as you want, to watch , play, do what ever you want.   Though alas, as you do those things the story gets longer with a less chance of someone willing to read.

-END PB-

- Start-Further Rambling of No Consequence-

What wisdom has 30 brought?  For all the things I have learned right?  In the twenties one just learns when to trust himself and to stop out smarting himself.   You’re a young adult, out of college,  and mentally equiped enough just to outsmart yourself into disaster.   Yet, intentions were well designed. The perception of pitfalls were lessons they couldn’t teach you in college and were learned as they happened.

Personally I haven’t regretted cutting anyone out maybe perhaps letting some in.   I have given people the benefit of the doubt at my expense more times than I can count, or willing to reflect upon.   But you learn that you are who you are but  you  have to monitor your personal nature.  No matter if the actions be  positive or noble you must take care and harden up a bit merely for self-preservation.  I could have used a bit more selfishness in my 20′s.  Would I have as much self-respect now? Perhaps in a more deluded way.

I have had ridiculous things happen, but in the grand scale such a lucky son of a bitch.    For the most part things go to plan just never the way you expect and no where as easy as it “should” have been.   I haven’t changed much in terms of what I like.   I still find kids and animals greatly entertaining.  I love music and a day does not go by where I do not sing.  Perhaps a regret is that I never learned to play anything, just even to have a good answer when people ask me, which they do often.   I love strategy games, and cooking.  I am love and hate with writing.  I think my literary legacy will be a bunch of interesting writings from long ago that my grandchildren if they exist, will have a kick out of reading.

I still collect sea shells and have little appreciation for over priced things.  I have grown arrogant and in my opinion deservedly so.  I spent too many years internalizing and considering what others think, it is a good exercise and keeps you in check, but when your right, your right.   I do not entertain ignorance as much and are less likely to give one the benefit of the doubt.  I have done my Jesus walking.  Done my time with whores, sinners and crazies.    No more crazy, I have done crazy.   Can’t reach out, can’t save ya.   Only worried about putting myself in a situation where I am already saved and then can reach out……with a ten foot pole.

Horribly cold thing to say,  as are some of the political or sociological things I often say in either jest or steadfast belief.

Granted, I could be working in social work, red cross or many other heroic occupations and I remind my self of this before I get too high.  Yet I am growing comfortable in my newly found arrogance.    After growing up with head issues to being an overly generous, too forgiving , young man unsure of himself.   From being crazy and few understanding to being called crazy because they couldn’t understand.

I have compiled a massive list of “I told you so’s” and “so I was crazies?” for my age that I refuse to second guess anymore.   I have been known to over analyze, but is it “over” necessarily?  I take in whatever, whomever has to say and yeah I dwell and I process and my gut is usually correct.  Weather I go with it or not is another story.

When it comes down to it.  I am not successful by average standards.  To my self I have done fairly well but trying to do better.   I am one of the last people I should question and I may allow myself to seem cold, and that’s ok because as far as being a sympathetic or compassionate human being I pretty much have that in spades over most of the filthy animals.   Enough that I fear no gods judgment and will suffer no judgment from others.

I have lived in three states and two countries.  My collection of friends resembles a box of Crayola.   Have yet to become a slave to trend or peer pressure and for the most part do things my way even if that way is slow and painful.   I’ve sung in front of a hundred, walked a runway in front of a thousand.  Recited poetry in public and private.   Even damn near initiated a riot.  Confronted my sins, combated my demons, and never lost the urge to scare the crap out of my self.    Have had a handful say I genuinely changed their lives and tip toe’d in and out of others.

I have walked a line  between chaos and a methodical madness and probably could not have it any other way.   No, not rich, not famous.  No thriving career or family.  Though, I know that if I were to meet that seventeen year old kid who half the time could think of nothing else but offing himself.   I know that the kid would find me to be the coolest mother fucker on the block.  It’s something that well, we’d probably only understand and with that thought I always smile.

I have shamelessly quoted myself at times.  Heck, once in a while you think of things that will actually make sense to other people and want to remember it.   One is to “live your life as it was a prayer.”   That’s why I rarely pray or go to church and often sound like a brow beating preacher.  The life you live is a testament of what you think of the gift and your case for whatever good there may be beyond.   Of course I suppose most of the world could not live that way.

I never wanted to live a life watching movies or staring in them.  I wanted to live a life like a movie.  So far its been interesting. Think I have fit many genres in and am aware of those missing.    The producers been generous, the director a little bit wiser.  Do I feel old?  No, I don’t believe so.  I feel ageless.