ADULTISM: JUST DO IT?

Adultism: making mistakes and passing the knowledge on without admitting how you learned it.

“Mistakes? Not me. I just know things because I’m smarter than you.”

If you haven’t said those words, you’ve heard them and thought, ‘this is what smart people say?’

And we wonder why young people don’t respect their elders any more than baby boomers did in their younger days.

When my kids were in their formative years I enjoyed teasing them with my eclectic knowledge.

When they asked how I knew I’d tap my head and say, “It’s not hollow like yours,” before over-explaining things.

Did that help them?

Maybe.

It did wonders for me when I was home alone with them trying to make an impression like their momma so she’d know we were a team and I did more than park them in front of the TV.

Don’t get me wrong, there was plenty of that, but first they had to have had enough of me.

 

 

The idea was to encourage them to look on their own, to find their own resources, to prove me wrong.

Now they’re the adults teaching their kids.

Here to help, boys. On call for life.

 

Who’s An Educational Resource? You

A small slice of  common sense and patience goes such a long ways, and it feels like giving back.

Me: One and one is three.

Kid: No, it’s not.

Me: Break it down.

Kid: This is one. This is another one, not the same one. Singly they are a one and a one. Together they are two.

Me: Sounds like that pre-school paid off.

Kid: I’m a college graduate.

Me: And you haven’t forgotten the basics.

 

 

I continue to provide insights for a well-rounded education, something they can pass down.

 

‘The difference between shit and shinola is proven on your shoes: one is on the bottom, the other on top.’

This is why they wear bunny suits in the clean-room chip fab.

Not everyone knows the difference.

 

‘All I want to see are elbows and assholes.’

This is what we hear on a shovel party and everyone gets too chatty at church garden club.

Lean in, lift a shovel-full of dirt, empty, and repeat.

I heard something similar while helping my kid assemble an IKEA cabinet and rambling on.

“Less talk, more screwing.’

What I heard was lesson learned. Where’s my hankie, there’s something in my eye.

 

A Lesson From The Olds

From historical accounts mouthed by people acting like they’ve experienced something but really didn’t, to feats of strength logged in their youth by someone other than them but you’d never know, we all wade through the swamp, bushwhacking our way through the sound and the fury looking for that authentic gem.

If you can’t find it, if you get tried of looking, only then are you authorized to make shit up.

If you can’t tell the truth, at least be interesting.

But even the most interesting liar among us has their limits.

What used to happen when the bullshitter started believing their own bullshit?

They took a little boat ride in Lake Tahoe after a nice goodbye kiss in Havana.

Michael: I knew it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart.

Fredo: Uh oh. Gotta go.

They were expelled from society one way or another, at least from the society who knew them for the liar they were.

 

 

The loose lip, the untrusted, was once a menace that needed dealt with.

Today, it’s another story.

As long as the rewards of a relationship with a liar remain high, more jump on board.

Now we have to sort our own facts and figures while the blow-horn of balderdash grows louder and louder.

But why not be different than the crowd and hold up the mirror of truth, be the mirror of truth.

 

 

When someone you thought well of gets squeezed and those other feelings gush out like a break in a pressurized sewer line, feelings of blame along with victimhood, making nonsense statements to avoid being accountable, pointing fingers everywhere because they’re bad at their job, just lashing out at a world who knows them all too well, there’s a natural remedy.

It’s called science.

Whether you believe in science or not, whether you learned the scientific method or not, the evolutionary clock is ticking.

It’s been ticking since your moment of birth.

Baby boomers hear it clearly with every passing day of someone passing.

 

 

Some of us want to leave a record like Faulkner when he said, “What a writer’s obituary should read – he wrote the books, then he died.”

Personally I like, “He wrote the blog post, then another, before dying.”

I like it, but I’m not sick, nor do I have any imminent plans to die.

But science being what it is, with biology and aging cells and all, why not make a plan?

 

 

PS:

Adultism is an old man talking down to everyone. It’s also a list of ages.

16 years old to drive.

18 to vote.

21 to drink.

25 for reduced car insurance.

30 for congress.

35 for president

 

PSS

The good news comes from 2019:

 

Ages 65 to 74: Peak happiness.

 

Have you reached peak happiness?

Get going.