The Tim he is a-changing

I have never quite gotten used to being a grown up. But I am a little over a month away from turning 49 and it is hard to ignore the fact.

The worst thing about turning 49 is that it is one year away from 50. And I've heard that platitude about 50 being today's 40, but I'm not really buying it. Fifty is half a century no matter how you rationalize it.

It is not that I feel old (or grown up). I just feel changed. It's not just my body. My outlook has changed as well.

When you are young, it seems as though time will last forever. When you are older you look back and realize how fleeting it actually is. I am sure I am not the first person to discover this. But I think the knowledge comes in a time release capsule.

There are many things about aging that are actually not bad. Raging hormones have begun taking Yoga classes. I don't have to make up stuff under the "experience" column on my resume. I never get carded when I buy liquor. I can begin anticipating AARP discounts. And I can sneer at eager and ambitious young people with a sense of pity knowing that life will eventually wear them down as well.

There are things I am desperately trying to avoid as I age. I refuse to refer to myself as 49-years young. I won't eat dinner before 7 p.m. no matter what discount I can get. I won't wear black socks with shorts. I will watch for the "I want to gnaw my arm off to get away" look in people's faces if I catch myself telling one too many stories about the good old days. Finally, I will never buy a sports car and get a perm.

That being said, it is almost 7 p.m. and I am getting pretty hungery. I better go and fix dinner. Or we could go to the Country Kitchen Buffet. I think rush hour is over.

Legend in my own mind

Not long ago, someone accused me of being a "legend in my own mind." Other than being a cliche and unimaginative thing to say, it really didn't bother me. I am lots of legends in my mind. Or more precisely, I have lots of legends in my own mind. That's why I like to plaster my face on kings, cowboys, clowns and mimes. It's fun to bring my legends to life.

When I was a boy, I wanted desperately to be an astronaut. I watched Alan Shepard, John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, and Buzz Aldrin on our black and white television launched at the tip of rockets and walking on the moon. And I wanted to be them. Lately being an astronaut has dropped a notch in the legend category, but when I was a child they were truly legendary.

At various times in my life I've wanted to be Van Gogh, John Lennon, Elvis, Einstein, King Arthur, Braveheart, Edgar Allen Poe, King Tut, Ceasar, Wild Bill Cody, James Bond, Cyreno de Bergerac, Bart Starr, Hans Solo and the Godfather. The digital world allows me to play virtual dress up and be those legends.

So being a legend in my own mind really isn't that bad of thing. Oh, and I really never wanted to be a cheese quesadilla, ambergris, or an omelette, but sometimes it's fun just to be a random object in my own mind, too.

Growing Panes

I marvel sometimes at how my point of view regarding things changes as as I...mature (I almost said "age"...the two words aren't necessarily synonomous). I suppose it is to be expected. Experience is supposed to teach you what to expect. So logically experience teaches you to rethink your expectations. So you look at things differently after you've been through them a few times.

This is not to say I consider myself a particularily wise man. I just look at things differently than I did when I was...less experienced (I almost said "younger").

Now looking at things differently doesn't necessarily mean I don't occasionally repeat the same mistakes even after having experienced something that one would think would make me try a different tactic. This mainly involves engaging my mouth before my brain. You'd be amazed at how much faster my mouth is than my brain. I know I am.

I've always had this uncanny ability to be able to blurt out a response to something that, although occasionally quite funny, is often inappropriate or ill timed. Why? Because my brain is usually still reviewing the pros and cons of what I am considering saying while my mouth is already dashing out the door with it like a male dog unleashed on the neighbors poodle in heat. The results are initially quite satisfying but ultimately can lead to a high degree of unanticipated ugliness when the puppies are born.

I'm not even sure where that analogy came from, but it oddly fits (or fits oddly).

Fortunately when I was a child, in addition to having a quick tongue, I also had quick feet to run when what I'd say would sink into my brother's slower brains.

When I got older (yes older) and slower, I learned to control my penchant for blurting things out by mumbling. That way only people with very keen hearing can understand what I'm blurting out. In school this often caused problems for anyone sitting next to me in class. They would burst out laughing at something inappropriate I'd interject regarding the teacher and then get the brunt of the teacher's anger for interrupting the class. I would just sit there smiling angelic-like until I found another opportunity to mumble a wisecrack.

This coping mechanism has stayed with me as an adult in the business world. I get bored easily at meetings and mumble uncontrollably at times. The unfortunate side effect is that my normal speaking voice seems to have become one big mumble. Tess is always asking me to repeat things. Depending on the topic of my mumbling I normally just say in a slightly louder voice, "Oh nothing."

Perhaps this is why I became a writer. It allows me think a bit longer before I speak and it is difficult to mumble when you write. The closest thing there is in the written word to mumbling is gibberish (and some bloggers have turned gibberish into an artform).

Unfortunately, electronic communications have chipped away at that lag time writing used to provide us between thinking and speaking. E-mail (and blog comments) allow us to type before we think. But this is where experience kicks in (I bet you were wondering if there was a caboose to this train of thought). I have learned to type my unthinking responses and then think about them before I hit send. Then in most cases I do the right thing and hit "delete."

I wish I had a delete key for my mouth.

Well hell

One might believe that because I don't believe in the traditional hell and heaven that I am not a spiritual person. This is not true. I believe in karma. I believe in Quantum Physics. I believe in the power of the mind. I believe in spirits. I believe that children are our future.

Okay, you get my point. Don't assume that because someone doesn't believe in the same thing that you do that they don't believe in something. And never believe that your belief system is the only one that has any validity. That kind of arrogance will get you your own level of hell (which doesn't exist, but you'll go there anyway because you believe in it).

I believe we all create our own reality (I'm not sure who created George W. Bush, but could you give us a break and pull your head out of your ass). Everything we see, hear, say, do is sucked through that wrinkled gray matter of our own brain and then projected on the screen that is our life. That is the reality of things. If you don't like the script, toss it in the trash and open a new one.

But this time, write a happy ending.

The devil you say

I don't believe in hell. At least I don't believe in hell, the place. Well, I do believe there is a town in Grand Cayman called Hell. But you don't go there when you die. You go there when you are on a Caribbean cruise. That is an important distinction.

Not believing in hell bothers some people. One, it doesn't mean much when they tell me to go there. It's kind of like calling your parent's bluff when they say they are going to count to three when they are trying to make you do something. Though my mom generally only got to two before I caved. I never really wanted to find out what happened after she counted to three. My father never counted. He just smacked you.

But I digress.

Not believing in hell conversely means I don't believe in heaven either. So, I'm really messing with some people's punishment-reward motivation concept in controlling behaviour. But if punishment-reward motivation worked, we wouldn't have so many prisons now would we? So what good is hell and heaven in controlling morality?

I'm amazed that there are people who can't accept that heaven and hell aren't literally, physical places that people go to when they die based on which side of the moral ledger they end up on. If anything, heaven and hell are metaphors for the states of mind we can reward or damn ourselves with.

Isn't that a hell of a concept?

I, Tim Id

Self-image is an odd thing. How can we look in a mirror and truly see ourselves when everything...literally everything is filtered through our mind.

Ironically, I think this is why I hate photos of myself. And ironically, this is why I think I Photoshop so many photos of myself. I want to fix those flaws my mind's eye sees.

I realize this isn't particularly entertaining or enlightening for anyone but me. But I'm really fighting this trap of blogging what you think people want to read.

What is it though that makes you read other people's blogs? Sometimes I read someone's blog and I feel like a voyeur peeping through a virtual window. But then I realize that I wouldn't be looking if they hadn't left their virtual shades up. What is the point of blogging if no one reads it? If you write a blog and no one reads it, does it still make a point? What is the sound of one hand blogging? Show me the face you had before you were blogging?

Shit. I sound like a broken record. And the full moon has waned. What do I blame it on now?

Paint by numbers

One of my father's hobbies was painting those paint-by-number kits you could buy at K-Mart. He mainly painted horses and a few landscapes He was actually pretty good at it. The framed horse paintings hung on the walls of our family room for years while I was growing up.

I suppose in the purest sense, it wasn't really art. But it made him happy.

I feel the same way about my Photoshop creations. Sure I'm simply slapping my face on someone else's painting and making a few clicks of the mouse. But damn it is kind of fun. And there is an art in doing it in a way that isn't totally obvious. Plus it fulfills my rich fantasy life of being famous or infamous (delusions of grandeur?).

I am easily pleased. But hey, some people drape fabric along a stretch of highway and call it art. At least I'm building on the classics.

We art what we art through art.

Is it unbecoming to be becoming?

Hayden wrote another one of her great, "damn now I have to think" posts called "Becoming." The post was about finding yourself versus becoming yourself (my interpretation). She did not intend it as a Meme, but she did ask all of us, "What are you becoming?"

This question makes more sense if you are middle aged and comfortable in the fact that you don't know anything than it would if you are in your 30s and a little pissed that things aren't working out the way you planned them when you were in your 20s and knew everything.

First, I have learned many things as I fade into middle age. One is that John Lennon was right when he said, "Life is what happens while you are making other plans." I have spent a lot of energy in my life wondering what my special purpose is (not the same special purpose that Steve Martin discovered in the movie "The Jerk"...I discovered that a long time ago). I'm pretty sure that the meaning of life is living it.

I know that aging does not guarantee you are becoming wiser. Some people just get old. Some try and stave it off by trying to act young and spouting cliche shit about "you are as old as you feel." If that is true then sometimes I feel like a freakin' 100-year old.

I would like to say that I am becoming better with time like a fine wine. But anyone who has drank their share of wine know that even really old wine can suck, especially if it is "corked." The best wine is the one you drink and get a mellow buzz from. Some of these wines have screw tops instead of corks.

I won't say I know what I want to be when I grow up. I do know that I more or less have always wanted to be a writer. And I write. Now granted, I write a blog read by maybe nine people on a good day, but they are good people. And I am becoming content with just writing and not caring what anybody else thinks about the quality of my writing.

You know. What I am really becoming is content. I tried religion, therapy, crystals, affirmations, anti-depressants, co-dependence, self-loathing and more self-help books than I care to shake a preverbial stick at. It wasn't until I finally got married (at aged 47 mind you) that I stopped always focusing on myself and started thinking my becoming may just be enhanced by putting something else before me.

I won't go as far as saying I am totally comfortable when I look in the mirror, but I sleep at night and I get up in the morning. So what if I'm not the president of the United States (wouldn't that be a downer). So what if I haven't written the great American novel (most of the world doesn't speak English anyway). And so what if I am not a household name. While the famous age and then fade into oblivion, screaming to be remembered for who they were, I age and simply am who I am.

I am enjoying starting to enjoy my becoming and be-going.