A Week's Worth of Thirty

A lot of people freak out when they turn thirty. I've been thirty for a whole week now and so far, so good.
Well, there has been some snow, and a couple of hangovers. But it IS December and it IS my birthday...better a hangover than an almost-mid-life crisis I always say.

Thirty isn't old. It sounded old when I was, like, twelve. But, the farther I got into my twenties the more the reality of the situation set in. Life is just starting. I look at my twenties as something of a decade long theatrical experiment in movement, ambient sound and varying degrees of stasis.Things feel different now.

It seems facile to credit the rotation of the earth around the sun with knowledge gained but that's what it boils down to. Time passes and while it's rushing by, if you're lucky, you pick up a few nuggets of wisdom. In thirty years you can rack up a lot of mistakes to learn from. You learn some things about yourself, about the nature of people and what it really is that makes the world work.

Before anyone starts breathing down my neck about blah-dee-blah claiming omnipotence I'm not saying I have answers. I'm saying that you learn some stuff. I don't really think there are any definite answers. The world is an eerily subjective place. That's one of the things I've learned. I'm still working on objectivity. I'm not so good with that yet. But hey, I'm only thirty. And in an age where people are still walking the earth at the age of 104 I have plenty of time to learn more, live more and love more. Chances are I'll work in a few more hangovers before I truly get tired of those too.

I guess the real question about getting older is what are we supposed to do with all of this stuff we've learned. Your brain can be full of all sorts of good things - art, science, recipes, iambic pentameter, whatever - but if you don't do anything with it....well, there's not much of a point then is there?

Of course, I don't know that I'm really one to talk. The most fruitful thing my brain has produced recently (excluding any clever answers for Loaded Questions) is this blog and even that is a chore sometimes. To wit, it took me a week and two days to write about being thirty. But I'm doing something. And I guess I'll continue trying to do something forever. Even when I have done "something" who knows if that will be enough. I don't think it will. I don't think there is ever enough. There is always more to do and see and feel....this world, this universe, it's a big place friends. There's plenty of room, plenty of light and plenty of experiences for all of us...and then some.

As an example here are some fine folks who share my birthday and some interesting things that have occured on December 4th throughout history.

1875 Rainer Maria Rilke
1934 Wink Martindale, TV host (Tic-Tac-Dough, Can You Top This)
1971 Terrence Wisdom guard/center New York Jets
1619 America's 1st Thanksgiving Day in Virginia
1945 Senate approves US participation in UN
1964 Beatles release "Beatles For Sale" album

That's all. A bit rambly...but it's hard for me to keep track in my old age. I'm going to go back to enjoying my "sick day" now - Little House On The Prairie is on!