The dreaded light came on in my wife's car the other day as she drove to work. Then the car dutifully stalled. This had me thinking as we were wrapping up spring break in Orange County (where the beautiful people live) and driving the 400 miles back to San Francisco. This blog might appeal to my readership at the mid point of their life as is the case for me, while for others it might be like watching paint dry ... unless the latter is your thing it would be good to go ahead and read it anyway.
I am refering to the concept of gaining perspective on your own mortality at this mid life crisis moment where you and the spouse (in most cases) have pulled the ox cart up the hill and now are catching your breath on the plateau before its all downhill ... the kid is about to wrap up school while you are on that plateau hopefully and you are going to stick around to watch him, her or they graduate (to something they think is worth graduating for).
Going downhill and all is fun (in a Porsche or a Fiat - depending on your perspective of the mid life crisis) but its worth checking to see if you still have brakes left. Also note that mid life is a mere optimistic estimate (what with all the high funda statistics we learned) with no guarantee that it will indeed be so...the bucket as they say might be round the corner on that plateau.
Getting back to the 'Engine Light' analogy - it is interesting that like a car you also have to start thinking of your own 50,000 mile major service soon. Check in and stay a while - get all your tubes and orifices and valves checked and make sure that there is proper oil and other fluids in you to keep the ticker going for the next 50k.
Here is another essay on the subject of first names. As in birth names. Or names provided to an offspring at birth. While the developed world tends to shy away from the exotic like Refrigerator or Coca Cola for their new production there is a plethora of Jims and Johns and Bobs or Robs. Speaking of which I do not think there is a categoric decision point at the time of birth if a child will be hereafter called as Bob. I mean have not yet met a toddler called Bob or Rob for that matter. At some point though the parental instinct to mouth out multiple syllables runs out and they switch from calling the crawler Robert to simply Robbie to Rob. Now speaking of - it is strange that the name sounds like something you would not want Rob to do - i.e. Rob anyone. Then why call someone that? After all Rob Peter to Pay Paul is not exactly a maxim to live a young life? Is it? Perhaps Peter or Paul might want to have a say in it? Then there is this matter of going to the John. Why degrad...
Hope lies eternal in the human breast, as some wise guy has already said. There was a joke about Shantanurao Kirloskar, when he once replied to someone asking him how he maintained his health at 80 or so years..."it's a Kirloskar product, after all"
ReplyDelete