This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.
Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating meltdown.
"You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old." -George Burns
Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,
The boilerplate that appears at the top of this column, at least on my website, includes the following statement: Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating meltdown.
The word intersectional belongs between debilitating and meltdown but by leaving it out I avoid the statement slopping over onto the next line creating an unbalanced looking heading. They call me Mister Symmetrical.
{Some of them call you Mister Anal and think you're unbalanced. Also, I must point out that given that some people read this column via email, on their phones, or even via ink sprayed on dead trees your obsession with symmetry may be pointless.}
Well, I must point out that sexy senior citizens (SSCs) understand that my love of symmetry, and the pursuit of same, is merely fidelity to my personal aesthetic inclinations. The point is to know what you like without feeling compelled to justify it to others, but also maintaining a live and let-live attitude... in spite of the fact the world is full of philistines.
SSCs know that you must remain open to expanding your inclinations and be aware that there are always going to be people who can teach you things, right up to the day you're deleted. Some of them are long dead but have left numerous hints and clues behind.
Not all geezers/geezerettes are SSCs, many are just parodies of their younger selves with wrinkles. Or worse yet, a parody that's had so much "work done" they now look like caricatures of their younger selves.
Note to aging famous (and formerly famous) actors and models, presidents, seriously rich people, upper-class people, and members of the lower-upper class who have the time, inclination, and money to strive to look forever 39 (preferably younger):
Knock yourself out. It's your time, inclination, and money.
However...
I feel compelled to note that wimmin of all ages who strive mightily to look "hot" while simultaneously decrying the toxic male gaze are considered oxymoronic by some of my fellow (but less sensitive) heterosexual, cisgender males.
And, that many men, of all ages, who strive mightily to look hot or cool via ponytails, patchy facial hair, or the I Only Shave Every Other Day Look often look lukewarm at best.
Also, the faces (beware of close-ups) of the sort of people of a certain age that go out of their way to display pictures or videos of themselves showing how young and healthy they look often resemble robots with worn plastic faces touched up by makeup artists that work at funeral homes.
{Feel better now?}
I do, Dana. Thanks
{So what exactly is a sexy senior citizen given the title of the article? Remember that? How about a concise definition?}
Can't be done, Dana. That would be like trying to concisely/accurately explain the taste of homemade _______ to an AI-powered android. It will never get it, although it will be able to fool many people into thinking it does... but not a SSC of course.
The most concise definition I've been able to come up with is that a SSC is an individual of a certain age who manages to remain (reasonably but not too) young at heart but has been around long enough, and is savvy enough, to have accumulated a level of wisdom unlikely to be found in the young of body/brain.
But advanced chronological age is no guarantee of wisdom. There is indeed no fool like an old fool because if they haven't figured it out by then they are unlikely to ever figure it out, and "it" is somewhat variable and hard to define.
{Could you be a little more vague?}
I warned you.
{Fine then, what do you mean by savvy? Smart?}
No, because nowadays most people think of smart as intellectually smart.
A good mechanic that doesn't read anything besides the local paper and repair manuals, is fundamentally kind (but not necessarily warm and fuzzy), honest (but would never tell their spouse that their new ______ makes their butt look big), and has lived long enough to know there is such a thing as human nature and there isn't such a thing as Utopia (or many other things) is not usually called smart.
But they're definitely savvy, perhaps even wise, prefer traditional (commonsensical) pronouns, and are just as likely to be of benefit to the world as the average professor with a Ph.D., perhaps more likely. In fact, an excellent janitor who embodies the virtues listed in the previous paragraph is more valuable to the world than a professor who doesn't.
As I mention in my glossary the term sexy senior citizen doesn't refer to physical attractiveness or how sexually active someone is. It's about a certain difficult-to-define something that can be so subtle that only a fellow SSC may be aware they have it. For the record, SSCs know that modesty and restraint are much sexier than cheap displays.
They're also aware of the fact that much of who they really are, and what they know, is invisible to younger H. sapiens. This gives them an edge in various situations that the young aren't even aware of.
One of the many compensations for being closer to one's inevitable deletion than the young is being able to gently manipulate them without their knowledge. Luckily for them we're more likely to do this for their own good, or frankly, for our own amusement, than to do evil.
Fortunately for our fellow H. sapiens and unripened progeny, we (mostly) use our secret superpowers for good.
Poppa loves you,
