|
THE EPILOGUE: A FEW THOUGHTS
A lot of folks ask me where do all of these words come from? I honestly have no idea. The best answer is probably that I spend a lot of my time thinking and a lot of that time thinking about booze in particular. Booze thoughts then tend to lead me to philosophical thoughts and then I try to tie them together the best I can. I go to bed on Wednesday night with an idea but then wake up on Thursday and that's gone and something else has popped in my head. On Monday night I'm on the couch with Ryker dog sipping on something marvelous and I want to just pontificate on how none of this is that hard. The last two days there has been a person in the store for thirty minutes on the phone and asking us, and then both left with nothing. So stressed out and so unwilling to be assisted. I hate watching them drown needlessly but it is something I have to give over to. I think a lot of folks have no idea what their faces look like when they are clearly lost and stressed out "I'm fine! I'm fiiiiinnnnnne!!!!". This is an adult candy store, you should be splendid but instead here we are. The vermouth is facing the bourbon section, the bitters are on the beer side, yes you have to pay separately and no we do not have any Crown Blackberry.
INTELLIGENCE IS SEXY!: I started to try and watch Bad Monkey but the opening scene was not good and for the most part I do not care for narration, especially when it felt like some kind of spin on The Big Lebowski so I turned it off and put on what I like to call Smart people talking. Some people enjoy the sounds of the ocean, I like to listen to Stephen Fry talking about anything. I like learning about the universe from Neil Degrasse Tyson. I like to listen to Marc Maron talk about comedy. Smart people soothe me and make me feel better even when they are saying scary or sad things. Malcolm Gladwell explaining about how much money Ivy League schools have and how they are not using it makes me mad, but it still overall makes my brain feel better. Maybe I'm starved for intellectual conversation or maybe my love and hunger for new information is insatiable or both, either way, intelligent people talking to each other is my form of meditation and I will listen to them while I do my morning walk or in the evening with a glass of whiskey etc. and feel better for having done so. Smart folks have had a hard time of it for most of recorded history and this feels like one of the first times they are being celebrated at all, so I'm taking full advantage of this moment to enjoy being the nerd I am.
One of the best parts about traveling to Kentucky next week will be listening to the experts talk. I had the most wonderful time in Mexico a few years ago but the part I remember most is listening to Carlos Camarena talk about tequila! I tend to read a lot more non-fiction than fiction because I enjoy learning so much. High School was so dull because even when it wasn't dumbed down you can never pursue a line of questions past the initial query. Instead of discussing the book we had to move on to the "details" that would be on a test later. And of course, the contrary is also true, ignorance is such a turn off! People proudly and loudly declaring that this is dumb, this is a waste of time, this person is dumb, that person is stupid, why would anyone blank etc. Maybe take a moment to try and figure out why before dismissing it??? I didn't watch the Olympics but I know why people do and I think that is wonderful.
CHANGE IS EXCITING: Remember the good old days when things were like this and not like that?? Whatever that was shocking to the previous generation etc etc. Technology moves so fast and makes the past look wild. Horses? I have a car that knows where to go better than I do and plugs in for fuel! In college I read Thucydides, and you know what he had to say, "these kids today!" One of the oldest books in the world has an adult complaining about the next generation. So, if you can just sort of accept change as inevitable and hop on the roller coaster ride it can be a much more exciting time. Once a week I get to talk to Sara in New Zealand, listen to my friend Melissa Engleman sing like an angel in my car, and browse cooking recipes from both today and a century ago! I spent most of young adult life being lost on the way to places both new and familiar and now my phone can tell me what time I need to leave from here to make it to my Heaven Hill appointment on Tuesday!
I'm not saying it is scary and there are folks with huge Vinyl collections and Tarantino claims that he prefers VHS?? Shoot a stage play on 70 mm and watch other people's movies on VHS? Sure thing QT. If you woke up from a coma at almost any point during the last hundred years you would certainly be shocked by a great number of things. Also, not all of this stuff is an "improvement" do we need commercials yelling at us while we pump our gas? The army of pseudo experts telling you this that or the other while only holding on to a small piece of the puzzle. The endless amount of beeping that every device does! My point is only that it is here, and it is coming regardless. Trying to be a one-person dam is both impractical and not fun. You miss the good things when you do that and get angry and bitter.
Changing your mind is exciting too! We can draw lines, fortify ourselves, cross our arms, shake our heads, and even stomp our feet, but if you take time to listen and observe you might notice that you are wrong. You might have been right previously, but things have changed, new information has come to light, or you have evolved as a person and now you can change your mind. The example I repeat over and over is that I once declared I didn't drink white wine to one of the best winemakers in the world and watched him nod his head at me like the idiot I was being until my friend Adam shook me out of my coma of ignorance and I tried Mount Eden Chardonnay, and my life changed forever. That's right just one small choice completely opened me up to a whole new variety of flavors and served as a reminder that I'm certainly wrong about a whole lot of other things and that being open instead of closed is a much more fun way of engaging life.
THE PAST IS BEST VIEWED IN PASSING: I consider myself fortunate that I rarely fall under the spell of nostalgia, but it does grab me from time to time and it can really grab you. A song, a movie, a place, a meal, a person, a time of year, or even a phrase can send you time traveling in an instant. You can smile, you can shake your head, you can sigh, or feel relief but you can't move in. If I went back to Osaka, today it would not be the same as it was then. Retracing those steps with the expectation of the return of that spark would not be fruitful. My favorite chip was Funyuns at one point. Those things taste like salty Styrofoam! We used to drink malt liquor in college on Wend night, the last time I tried to revive that tradition I was not able to take a second sip! If your head is facing back not only, can you not see tomorrow but you can't see today either! Lots of wonderful things are happening right now, and there is more to come. I'm not sad about not liking Crown Royal anymore, I'm thrilled that I can pick out the unique flavors of what I drink today and enjoy them. My first glass of Scotch was repulsive. I don't want to go back to that feeling. I love being able to handle the complex and enjoy the well-made and simple alike. I might not ever possess the optimism of youth again, but I have the skills to both manage expectations and PLAN!
We can paint our narrative with different colors and reframe things with a current perspective, but we can't change what has occurred. I'm probably not alone in spending large amounts of times reviewing and criticizing myself for past decisions. I will physically wince when they pop into my head and get mad at myself all over again. "Why did I say that? Why did I do that? Why didn't I do that? If I had told her that I loved her before I moved away then I still would have moved away. The value of that experience is learning to share those feelings when they occur next time not to beat myself up again.
We live in a strange time where the past is able to be sent to you whether you want it or not. Last night a photo taken from 17 years ago appeared on my page and it was quite a jolt! How could that possibly have happened 17 years ago?? Was I even alive that long ago? And the internet had already been invented and everything? It made me smile and sad at the same time because that was a great time in my life but a chapter that is closed. So you smile at the good part and then you just keep it moving.
|
