Showing posts with label the secret of life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the secret of life. Show all posts

Sunday, June 2, 2024

The Secret of Life

Image by Nuno Lopes from Pixabay

This weekly column consists of letters written to my perspicacious progeny  the Stickies — to advise 'em now and haunt them after I'm deleted.

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC-65: Sexy Seasoned Citizens   

About 

Glossary 

Featuring {Dana}Persistent auditory hallucination and charming literary device 

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky." -Slick Willy


Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders),  

Sorry this column is late, life in the South of France moves at a leisurely pace. Pretending to be rich Eurotrash for the last month or so has been fun, but I'm running out of money. 

I should be home by now but I'm still here, in France I mean. The pic of the Eiffel Tower is deceptive in that Collette and I have yet to visit the Louvre or the city wherein it's located. 

We're currently staying at a remote chateau that belongs to a reasonably wealthy native who has fortunately managed to avoid the downsides of inherited wealth who/whom we happened to meet at a McDonald's of all places. 

He's a conservative family man and I'm advising him on finding a place to spend the summer back in the U.S. with his family as he wants his kids to see what America is actually like as opposed to how it's presented by the world's media.

He finds America fascinating and as mystified as I am as to how it is the Donald paying hush money to a well-known and enthusiastic professional could result in being convicted of committing dozens of felonies. I recently came across the phrase Bananas Republic on the Worldwide Web of Contradictory Knowledge.

The following Cranky's on a vacay column is from 2016, but it's been considerably edited, altered, and updated.      


The secret of life is that so-called real life is just high school with money. Once you embrace this notion, much becomes clear.

When I was in school, I noticed a phenomenon that hasn't changed. Much has obviously changed since I graduated from high school in 1971 and the subsequent, but unrelated, beginning of the collapse of Western Civilization in 1972 — the year disco songs started showing up on the charts — but not the phenomenon I'm about to explore.

I know this because of the Stickies, all children of the new millennium, who/whom I monitor closely.

{Who/whom?}

Despite my 39 documented college credits and nearly nine years of cranking out columns, I've managed to avoid becoming a master grammarian but the who vs. whom thing has always caused me trouble. I'm now too old to care all that much and I'm thinking about making who/whom company policy. 

I've helped to finance/parent/clean up after this sticky syndicate of savages, all of who/whom have turned out reasonably well...

{Wait-wait-wait. I'm certain that's a whom.}

I agree, Dana... So much for company policy. Anyway, for the record, I mention this because it was the right thing to do, not because I'm hoping they will never let a certain old crank starve, or go without high-speed internet access. 

But don't worry about me guys, I'll be OK. Now, where was I? 


As a young callowyute, I noticed that kids of only slightly different ages were often radically different creatures. Grade levels served as a reliable index. 

Every September, after another summer of working on the family farm at the family's steel mill on the Sou'sidah Pittsburgh, I exchanged my steel-toed work boots for a pair of cheap dress shoes from the local Thom McAn store and returned to school. 

{Dress shoes?}

I'm so old... When I was young everyone that went to Catholic school wore dress clothes or uniforms. Skirts only for girls with no "patent leather" shoes to prevent inadvertent immodest reflections. 

Most of the kids that were one grade level behind me seemed childish and dorky. Most of the kids that were one grade ahead were cooler than me and seemed to know something I didn't know.

[Question: Why is the American school calendar still built around an agrarian culture that no longer exists?]


As a callowyute, I was taught that at some point this process would end and that I would be a grup. All that was necessary after that was a slow but steady accumulation of skills and wisdom which I would pass on to the callowyutes in my life. 

[Of course, I wouldn't be like most grups, I'd still be cool. I'd never wear socks with sandals. I'd open a vein rather than wear an all-polyester outfit that included a white patent leather belt and shoes (and sandals with black socks). I'd only drive cool cars. Etc.]

Legally speaking, in the US at least, you can vote or become a porn star at age 18 and you can buy booze when you're 21. Science says that H. sapiens, on average, are not fully mature till roughly the age of 25. This explains a lot. 

{Let me guess, Colonel Cranky wants everyone to be 25 before they can vote, drink, or boink for bucks.}

Nope. On our current trajectory, I think that 21 and 18 will both eventually be lowered to 16. I support the current age limits to help prevent that from happening till I'm personally deleted.  

But if I were King I'd require that everyone has to pass the same citizenship test that immigrants have to pass to become naturalized citizens in order to register to vote.   


Once we finally fully mature we spend the rest of our lives waiting for the next dramatic step -- that day when we will wake up filled with wisdom, certainty, and financial security — which never actually happens. We will never actually graduate from high school.

Social/dominance hierarchies will always be a thing. Gossip/rumor/innuendo will always be a thing. The pursuit of happiness will always be a thing, but obtaining contentment is as good as it gets. 

The maturity gap between you and both the younger and older kids will narrow and the lines blur but the average reasonably well-adjusted 40-year-old, for example, will find the average reasonably well-adjusted 30-year-old lacking in specific as well as vague ways.

What will change is that most of the kids that are older than you will gradually become less cool than you are as the years go by. 

Eventually, you'll look around and decide many of the kids that are your chronological age are now also older and also less cool than you, which will make you feel pretty good... till it dawns on you that you have no shortage of contemporaries who likely feel the same way about you. 

And as the crowd of H. sapiens that are younger than you keeps growing larger, you'll be reminded of how you felt when the world was top-heavy with clueless old people — like you?

Most H. sapiens will gradually/slowly/painfully learn to share the playground with others, perhaps even pick up a bit of wisdom here and there. Many will not. We will start out confident that we won't be like our parents; that our lives will be _______, _______, and _______! Then our lives will mostly just happen to us.

Some will win, some will lose, most will tie.

You're probably in better shape than me. I'm almost 71 years old, still overthink everything and in my heart of hearts I'm the same horny, insecure callowyute destined to be a rockstar and enlightened Taoist master that I was as a young man — just (thankfully) much less so.


You will do the job, take care of the kids and the parents who are morphing back into kids, keep the car running, etc. Since it's relatively easy to fool most callowyutes/ourselves/other grups, we will all participate in a lie agreed upon (HT: David Milch). We will all pretend to be well-adjusted grups when in reality we're just high-functioning high school kids.

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day


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Saturday, February 24, 2018

The Secret of Life (Part 2)

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who aren't here yet) -- the Stickies -- to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.


                         BEWARE THE (INTELECTUAL) DARK WEB

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve the problem and access lotsa columns.]

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars
Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse (right shoulder) and back scratcher 
Iggy -- My designated Sticky
Dana -- My designated gentlereader (left shoulder)

"The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made." -Groucho Marx 


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies,

I revealed the secret of life in a column published on 8.6.16 -- so-called real life is high school with money. I don't want to say I told you so, so I won't.

I submit, however, that the current kerfuffle concerning the Republicrats release of a memo summarizing how the Justice Department and the FBI pulled a fast one (or two) to obtain a warrant from a FISA court judge to spy on a certain Citizen of the Republic, and by extension the Trump presidential campaign, proves my point.

Dana: Oh, for the love of God! Enough already!
Marie-Louise: Non! non!
Iggy: Is in school.

Please Remain Calm and Do Not Abandon the Column   

Sorry, I do not intend to discuss the contents/veracity of the memo in question or the carefully nuanced positions of either of our esteemed two major political parties concerning said contents/veracity.

Republicrats: Un-huh! (rinse and repeat).
Depublicans: Nuh-uh! (rinse and repeat).

Or, the pending (it's probably out by now) counter memo crafted by the Depublicans.


Old school Big But

Immagine the high minded statesmenpeople as high school students and the famous/infamous memo as a mimeographed note (can you smell it?), runoff and distributed by the Committee to Reelect Amy McGillicuddy (CRAM) student council president.

It details the committee's -- which consists mostly of members, like Amy, of the marching band -- take on the recently exposed cafeteria food purchasing scandal.

What scandal? two words, one relative -- mystery meat and Mr. McGillicuddy. My lawyers advise me that I should stop there if and until the complex, multi-party litigation is resolved.


Cutting edge Big But

Replace the phrase mimeographed note above with the word text.


Now, the Dudes Onboard for Oliver Blobner (DOOB) -- Oliver, and his best bud Derwood -- are about to release their version of events, pending approval by principle Pocatello. Word in the halls is that they're going to try and implicate Amy in the scandal, indirectly, by pointing out she seems to own more shoes than Imelda Marcos.

Dana: Imelda who?
Marie-Louise: Qui?
Iggy: Is still in school.

Look 'er up on your pocket rectangles, surely you know how to use 'em for more than just... oh, never mind. Sorry, politics makes me bitchy.

The school board has been looking into the scandal for better than a year. The committee appointed to get to the bottom of the issue has stalled out over a sub-issue -- exactly what sort of animal or animals were used in the production of the mystery meat in question and what was its original source.

School board and committee member Betina Blobner (Oliver's mom) is spearheading the drive for the formation of a second committee.

Full disclosure: Ms. Blobner dated Mr. McGillicuddy when they were in high school just prior to his involvement with a girl an individual named Heather, whom he subsequently married, but has since divorced, prior to marrying his current wife the new and improved Heather2.

It seems that the purchasing scandal has ballooned into an investigation of all sorts of purchases besides mystery meat, including non-food items.

Ms. Blobner thinks another, separate committee is needed to concentrate on the mystery meat issue since it affects not just the high school but the entire school district and possibly other districts as well.


Meanwhile, Back In the Jungle (of Competitive Capitalism)...

Mr. McGillicuddy, owner of McGillicuddy's Meats and Things, denies any billing irregularities and points out that he's not a butcher. MM&T is a wholesale distributor of heat and eat meats (and related products) manufactured by a plethora of suppliers, some of which are based outside the country.

"Knowing Betty as well as I do, I'm certain she just mistakenly believes she's doing her public duty. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a business to run and a family to feed."

He's also discretely leaked to the media the rumor that Ms. Blobners primary reason for coming after him is because he dumped her shortly after seducing her in the backseat of his '74 Nova the night of Enchantment Under the Sea dance when they were in high school.


From the Library of Economics and Liberty Encyclopedia:  As James Buchanan artfully defined it, public choice is “politics without romance.”   

In modeling the behavior of individuals as driven by the goal of utility maximization—economics jargon for a personal sense of well-being—economists do not deny that people care about their families, friends, and community. But public choice, like the economic model of rational behavior on which it rests, assumes that people are guided chiefly by their own self-interests and, more important, that the motivations of people in the political process are no different from those of people in the steak, housing, or car market. My emphasis. 


Since the distasteful topic of contemporary politics has reared its ugly head in this missive (talk to Marie-Louise, I just work here) and I'm a few hundred words under budget, permit me to dispose of another unpleasant topic currently preoccupying the Infotainment Industrial Complex. Granny panties. 

I confess to being completely unaware this topic was a thing till I stumbled on a video on USA Today's website that informed me that indeed it is. Thongs, I was informed, are out (good). Granny panties are in (not good). I googled the phrase granny panties and was rewarded(?) "with about 9,440,000 results (0.38 seconds)". 

[Are we nearing a destination, pantyboyperson?]  

Yes, Dana. I have two important questions. 

1. Am I the only one to whom it's obvious this subject is a subconscious manifestation of the left-right debate? Clearly, thongs are a symbol of the far left and granny panties the far right. Why can't we compromise, meet in the middle, and agree on bikini or hipster?   

2. Why does Google feel it's necessary to brag about About 9,440,00 results when it's only possible to access the first 1,000?

Poppa loves you.

Have an OK day.

2/24/18, 6:30 p.m. -- hmm, says I to me, I wonder what happened to the Depublicrats counter memo? Pushed to the side because of the tragedy in Florida? I need to update us before clicking on the publish button in a few hours.

I open a tab and start clicking around. Wow!, what are the odds? My enquiry is breaking news (pinky swear). Wait... on a Saturday evening? I start reading. The Depublican counter memo is, as expected, a nuh-uh... based on redacted information (but you can trust them). Well, that explains the Saturday thing. 

Bottom line. Months of Stum und Drang... and Wailing and Gnashing... and Rending of Garments and we   still   don't   know   shi... Never mind. Sorry I bothered you. Support congressional term limits before it's too late.   

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day.


[P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a Patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.

If there are some readers out there that think my shtuff is worth a buck or three a month, color me honored, and grateful. Regardless, if you like it, could you please share it? There are buttons at the end of every column.]


©2018 Mark Mehlmauer   (The Flyoverland Crank)

If you're reading this on my website (where there are tons of older columns, a glossary, and other goodies) and if you wish to comment — or react (way cooler than liking, and Facebook doesn't keep track) — please scroll down. 





















  










Saturday, August 6, 2016

The Secret of Life

The secret of life is that so-called real life is just high school with money. Once you embrace this notion, much becomes clear.

When I was in school, I noticed a phenomenon that has not changed. Much has changed since I graduated from high school in 1971 and the subsequent, but unrelated, beginning of the collapse of Western Civilization in 1972. (1972 was the year disco songs started showing up on the charts). I'm certain it hasn't changed because I have several hundred grandchildren, all children of the new millennium, all of whom I monitor closely.

[Aside: I help to support this sticky syndicate of savages in various ways for various reasons. I've been unusually lucky in that all of them, without exception, are fundamentally kind. Thanks to good parenting they're all well aware that while it's sometimes difficult to discern the straight and narrow path, it does exist, and should be followed if at all possible. I believe that the future will benefit from the fact they're in the world. 

Also, I'm reasonably confident that if I help them out as much as I can now, they'll make sure a certain old crank will never starve, or go without internet access, even if it's just from guilt.]

Where was I? Oh, yeah. As a young callowyute, I found it interesting that kids of only slightly different ages were often radically different creatures. Grade levels served as a reliable index. Every September, when I returned to school after another summer of back-breaking work in our family steel mill that was located in the Sou-side-a-Pittsburgh, it was the same.

Most of the kids that were one grade level behind me, the one that I had been in three months previously, were childish and dorky. Most of the kids that were one grade ahead, who were in the grade I was now in, just three months ago, were cooler than me and seemed to know something I didn't know.

[Begged question: Why is the American school calendar still built around an agrarian economy that no longer exists?]

As a callowyute, I was taught that at some point this process would end; that I would be a grup. All that was necessary after that was a slow but steady accumulation of skills and wisdom which I would pass on to the callowyutes in my life. Of course, I wouldn't be like most grups, I'd still be cool. I'd never wear socks with sandals. I'd open a vein rather than wear an all-polyester outfit that included a white patent leather belt and shoes (and sandals with socks). I'd only drive cool cars. Etc.

[Legally speaking, in the US at least, we're adults, or at least callowyutes with privileges, at the age of 16, 18 or 21, depending on the subject at hand and/or the location. Science tells us that H. sapiens are not fully mature until roughly the age of 25. This explains a lot. I find it interesting that car insurance companies figured this out before I was born based strictly on statistics. No theories, opinions, or legal judgments were needed or called for. The careful collection and verification of the facts was all that was needed. Life as it is, not as we would like it to be. We need more of that.]

Once we finally fully mature we spend the rest of our lives waiting for the next dramatic step -- that day we will wake up filled with wisdom and certainty -- which never actually happens. We never graduate. The rate of change slows down, the lines blur, the average reasonably well-adjusted 40-year-old will find the average reasonably well-adjusted 30-year-old lacking, in specific as well as vague ways.

Most will gradually/slowly/painfully get better at impulse control and learning to share the playground with others, perhaps even pick up a bit of wisdom here and there. Many will not. We will start out confident that we won't be like our parents; that our lives will be _______, _______, and _______! Then our lives will mostly just happen to us.

You're probably in better shape than me. I'm almost 63 years old and over think everything but in my heart of hearts, I'm the same horny, insecure callowyute destined to be a rockstar and enlightened Taoist master that I was in high school -- just less so (thank God).

We will do our best to keep the boat in the middle of the stream and going in the right direction. For a tiny minority, this will be easy, not so much for most. Some will win, some will lose, most will tie.

We will do the job, take care of the kids and the parents that are morphing back into kids, keep the car running, etc. Since it's relatively easy to fool most callowyutes/ourselves/other grups, we will all participate in a lie agreed upon (HT: David Milch). We'll all pretend to be well-adjusted grups when in reality we're just high functioning high school kids.

Have an OK day.


[P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a Patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.

If there are some readers out there that think my shtuff is worth a buck or three a month, color me honored, and grateful. Regardless, if you like it, could you please share it? There are buttons at the end of every column.]


©2017 Mark Mehlmauer   (The Flyoverland Crank)

If you're reading this on my website (where there are tons of older columns, a glossary, and other goodies) and if you wish to react (way cooler than liking) -- please scroll down.