Opinionated values · 12:48am Nov 20th, 2014
A while back I did a happy drunk blog. Today is the angry drunk blog. I'm down about half a bottle of very expensive whisky (because reasons) and it's only the extensive practice of a dyslexic that allows me to type coherently now that all the letters are dancing a jig across my keyboard - which I'm not looking at anyway because I can touch type because I'm not some plebian hunt'n'pecker peckerhead dweeb who has no idea where their fingers are.
There comes a point when you find yourself having conversations with people who you quickly realise were not even born when you were experiencing the formative years of your life. There are people on this very site - people with responsibilities, with power and with the trust of potentially thousands of users in their judgement - who were not yet born when Lisa Simpson played Classical Gas for the very first (and last) time. People for whom the the TNG episode All Good Things was a historical footnote on events that happened before they could suck their own big toe. People who did not see the Berlin Wall fall, nor the end of the Thatcher premiership, the Challenger disaster or the entire Gulf War, who nevertheless are old enough to have credit cars, drive cars, own property and be nearly past the maximum age limit to join the armed forces. People who should be children, but are somehow adults.
I was writing fiction before many of you were born. This is not a condemnation of your abilities or an attempt to pump up my own; it is a simple statement of fact. Many of you were not even sloppy seconds when I was starting my university career. When I was writing my first (abandoned) novel, more then a few of you were still trying to understand that there were other food sources than the giant round squishy milk dispenser.
I have no idea right now if I'm depressed, angry, bitter or enlightened by this.
My reaction is the same as always: Get drunk, listen to classical rock and cry.
It's probably beautiful.
Sounds like we're around the same age. Here's to being old and drunk.
You should drunk blog more often, Arch.
Hi. I'm 14. I was almost one year old when 9-11 happened. Sorry to have aroused your depression, anger, bitterness, and/or enlightenment.
34 here, sometimes I'm amazed at all the youngsters surrounding me at all times in this fandom.
Though admittedly, there are a number of authors I know of that have at least a decade on me. Everyone is old/young to someone else.
well shit :(
2605702
Remember the survey someone someone did here back in June/July? It was pretty surprising how many people here are in the upper ranges. Some of us were born before a certain stroll on the moon, and many of those are still older than I am...
I actually like the broad mix, warts & all.
Hell, I thought I felt old sometimes.
2605863
Hey, that was probably me!
sometimes it hits us what some of these things that we take for granted really mean.
2606038 Ah, yep, it was you. Thanks! I've been wondering about the overall results for a while now.
Sounds like we are about the same age. I recall watching the first episodes of the Simpsons, the x files, and so many others. The first election I followed was the 1988 bush vs Dukakis election. I was in second grade and it was the beginning of my addiction to politics. Man. A lot of stuff sure has happened.
Such is life Arch, getting old is one of those things that we are supposed to take gracefully and fearfully all at the same time. I'm pretty sure I'm your senior by a year or three if I recall what your age was back when you were sketching on your live streams. I'm sure it's just the booze talking for you. There will always be younger, smarter, faster, more successful people out there, that accomplish in a day what it took you a year and ten years to what might take your lifetime.
It's good to think about it while trying to see it from the perspective of an observer, rather than a victim. It might not be enlightening, but it is often refreshing... you know, in that ice water poured over your head kind of way. After that, you move on, "40 is the new 30". Thats what you say after you hit 35. A mantra chanted to no one in particular help "keep on truckin" as it were. We'll all be dead soon anyway, even those little piss napkins who are supposedly younger and faster etc and fuck on and whatever else. Ignore your age and get back to living, as it's most likely the best way to go about it at this point.
2606513
My favorite phrasing is that middle age is your current age plus five years. It's a moving target.
2605682
That's weird to think about. I was in elementary school then.
2605702
I find it strange to be older than some and younger than some. I'm more used to the being youngest/newest or the oldest/least new to trends. Either being aware of something when it was new or only just now realizing it existed/exists.
2606513
There's a danger to spending all your time looking backwards instead of ahead. One that's a bit more intangible than walking into a light pole. Instead of focusing on what you are and can be, you spend time focusing on what you aren't or wish that you were.