Hope

There are obvious benefits to getting older. Car insurance is cheaper, for one. Less hassle at the liquor store when a guy wants to pick up 2, 3 or, say, 11 King Cobras at a time. Your once cutting edge Stryper tattoo takes on a whole new context as a cultural history referent.

A more ambiguous gift of age is the accumulated context and perspective with which to view events, commonly referred to as wisdom. In its traditional form, wisdom is expressed as a collection of crytpo-philosophical aphorisms to astonish and bewilder anyone young and un-wisdomy enough to accidentally ask you a question to which you do not know the answer. The first crow's foot is itself a license to speak entirely in a muddle of koans akin to pidgin Fortune Cookese.

That clearly is a bonus: more ways to fuck with people expecting help is always welcome. I clearly missed my calling in high school guidance counseling.

The ambiguity comes from the dubious curse of historical perspective. Hindsight can help us make decent decisions--nobody buys a second Chevrolet--but it can lead to a listless, limp-armed depression and paralysis when we see patterns rolling out, over and over again, that we are helpless to stop and must simply wait out.

The boy band thing is one example.

And while we all knew we'd survive the low-slung jeans era, it didn't make all the muffin tops any easier to stomach (no pun intended).

For me, all my sad nostalgia--seen from the high vantage point afforded me by my great age-earned stature and wide vision, piercing the gold-hued misty haze of time and memory--is focused on the distant past of the Year 2000.

Come back with me, won't you? Remember the days of cell phones for voice communications, Creed and internet grocery shopping. Man, those were the days!

I also remember the presidential election that year. Semi-not-fat wonktard patrician political dynasty scion Vice President Al Gore--what a stiff!--versus non-beer-drinking-but-I'd-love-to-drink-a-beer-with silver spoon good ole boy political dynasty scion Texas Gov. George "W." Bush. Anyone remember what the biggest complaint about that election was? Yes, that's right: it doesn't matter who you vote for because they're both the same. People actually made a decision on whom to vote for because in a presidential debate, Al Gore was kind of a dick.

At the time it sounded kind of farcical and disastrous. Now? Kinda charming. The subsequent fill-in history since then dulls some of the charm sheen, sure, but still, how quaint we once were.

Using our hard-earned wisdom as a context for comparison, where are we now, politically, as a country?


and


Hm, so much for "no discernible difference." We're basically Godwin's Law writ large. Which is kind of awesome because it makes the foreigners a little scared of us*, which can be useful.

But wisdom also tells us not to get too worried about it. After all, we've kind of seen it before and we survived that nonsense.

Also, I should point out, that at least this time around, everybody has the good sense to not pay attention to Creed. By comparison, how can it really be worse?




* I recommend reading the comments section. And this is from a "neutral" national news source. I can't imagine what the right-leaning blogs look like.