Doing the Right Thing (tf)

Sometimes you need to just catch your breath. Life comes at you pretty fast….and we’re not all Ferris Bueller. I want to miss most of it if possible. Tell me when to duck. Tell me when it’s safe to be bored again. I adore being bored. There’s so much opportunity therein.

And doing the right thing is not always not easy, it’s a downright nuisance at times. Sometimes I’d prefer to have my own kind of fun. Watch a Phillies game with the sound on mute and a Band CD playing. Or read a book about a guy who decides to live in Juarez for a year, just because he heard it was the most dangerous place on earth. Or to just sleep in. All preferable to….you know….most stuff.

With age comes lots of things. Not many of them are any good. Responsibility for one. A dreadful thing when the seas start to get rough.

Not that I don’t at least try to measure up. It’s just that when I see the quiet grace with which others handle all sorts of bad things, I kinda hang my head. I might “handle” things….technically….but I’ll end up putting all sorts of dents and dings in the walls, like an underpaid, overworked, furniture mover. It can get kinda messy. Going through the brick wall, despite the mess…..is still quicker than going around you know.

I tell this to people and they look at me all funny like.

Age is supposed to be synonymous with wisdom. But I’ve met plenty of dumb old people so I don’t think that’s true. The one thing in common will all old dumb people is that they were all, without exception, young dumb people at one time. Age can mean wisdom if your IQ is sufficient to begin with. But saying that at 46 I’m twice as smart as I was at 23 is like saying that at 46 I’m twice as ugly as I was at 23. Truth is I looked kinda goofy at 23. Bad glasses and a Bono-mullet. I’ve aged somewhat gracefully since then.

But I digress. We were speaking of increased responsibility, no?

I think one of the reasons lots of guys my age act like adolescents is because it brings with it, at least until the booze or the chemicals wear off, a sense of irresponsibility that is, let’s be honest, somewhat irresistible. If I pretend to be forever 17, the drudgery of being 46 no longer exists. It’s quite a leap in logic but it can be achieved via the correct mix of substance abuse.

But it never lasts long enough, which is why I gave up on it some time ago. Now I just read lots of books and wait for the other shoe to drop.

Which is has been doing lately. With the regularity of a man pacing his own floor.

But still, the right thing beckons, as does the pesky conscience when the “right” thing can be avoided by so many little things that comes so naturally…..like not picking up the phone.

I’m not perfect. I’m actually embarrassingly far away from being even in the same zip code. I am, I feel, astoundingly average when it comes to these things, which makes me feel….well….sorta ambivalent about becoming reliant on others as I age even more. But still, the glass can be half full, or half empty.

At least it’s not dry.

–Tom Flannery

~ by admin on May 7, 2012.