This summer marks the end of the decade when everything I do is still
done as a man in his fifties.
It was a quick decade.
It started with a man standing at the end of a failed marriage,
wondering what the hell just happened. It ends with a man getting ready to
enter a decade where the Shepkids will become adults, his career will start
heading toward the finish line, and the calendar will stop pretending that time
moves slowly.
If one thing stands out from my fifty-something years, it is that the
world is ridiculous.
It has always been ridiculous, but it
takes about fifty years of living to finally admit it.
Everything seems to have some ridiculous attached to it. Start with the
easy targets. The media, advertising, trends and fashion. The things people
pretend are important because somebody on a screen told them they should be.
Then move into the heavier stuff. Politics, religion, status, money and
pride. The teams we pick. The sides we join. The flags we fly. The hills we
decide to die on, even when most of those hills are nothing more than piles of crap
that we made ourselves.
The most ridiculous thing I have figured out is how we treat each other.
How we love each other. How we hate each other. How fake we can be with
each other. How quickly we decide who matters and who does not. How often we
measure people by what they can do for us, what they look like, where they come
from, what they believe, or whether they fit inside the little box we built in
our own heads.
I am not talking about family here. Blood is thicker than water, and
family gets its own complicated chapter.
I am talking about the pecking
order.
I am talking about users and abusers. I am talking about people who
smile when they need something and disappear when they do not. I am talking
about how foolish we are when we let things that do not really matter decide
how we live, who we love, and who we refuse to forgive.
That might be the most ridiculous part of all.
The importance we give to things that do not matter.
They matter for a minute. They matter to a few people. They matter in
the moment when everybody is worked up and puffed up and acting like the world
will stop spinning if they do not win the argument.
But most of that bullshit has a short shelf life.
Most of the things that keep us angry,
worried, jealous, bitter, or afraid do not matter nearly as long as we think
they will.
Do you know what else has a short
shelf life?
Our time between our birth date and
our death date.
That little dash in the middle is
not as long as we pretend it is.
As I finish my fifty-something decade, I realize that most of the things
that came along and mucked up my life were ridiculous. Not all of them. Some
pain is real. Some loss is real. Some heartbreak leaves a mark that does not
wash off, but a lot of the noise was ridiculous.
A lot of the anger was ridiculous.
A lot of the worry was ridiculous.
A lot of the people I tried to
impress were ridiculous.
That is why today’s Shakespeare quote fits my mood this morning:
“Better a witty fool than
a foolish wit.”
Shakespeare is saying it is better to be the guy who knows he is a fool
and can still laugh at the world than the guy who thinks he is clever but has
no wisdom at all.
Maybe in my next decade, when I am sixty-something, I will finally know
which man I am. The guy who realized he was the fool on the hill, or the guy
too stubborn to realize it.
Either way, I am starting to figure something out. Ridiculous things do
not deserve front-row seats in our lives. Let’s figure out what is ridiculous
and ban it from the room.
Gusto is not ridiculous. Astonishment is not ridiculous. A good laugh is
not ridiculous. Forgiveness is not ridiculous, and a sun with a smile on its
face is not ridiculous.
Those are the things that get us through the dash.
Ignore the ridiculous crap
today, Chalkheads.
Be the witty fool, at least he knows enough to laugh.
