Aged to Perfection...

I have a theory that as you age you don't really change, you just become a more distilled version of yourself.

That you are basically who you are your whole life, and you try at different points in time to maybe soften the edges, or present a little differently but as you get older all of the parts that aren't really you just sort of slough off until you are the most basic crystalline pure version of yourself.

You hear people talk about it when they hit their 40s. The relief they feel when they stop giving so many fucks about what other people think of them. And that just carries forward. If you think you don't care at 40 wait until 50, and I've been told 70 is pure no fucks to give gold.

Part of what can happen though is you start to be sure you are always right. That your way of thinking is the correct one. That you have nothing left to learn, just an abundance of advice to dole out. 

Looking at my "on this day" feed always gives me examples of that. 

I tend to do things my own way. I march to beat of my own xylophone player. Over the years I have received a lot of comments from mostly older men, not always but typically, that I should do something else. That I need to get a life, a hobby, a job. Basically stop doing what ever it is that I'm doing and do what they think I should be doing. 

When I was younger that sort of thing could send me into an existential crisis. Am I not doing what I should be doing? What should I actually be doing? Why isn't what I'm doing an okay thing to do? What is wrong with me? As I aged my responses changed to telling them they could get a life, hobby or job but I was fine with what I was doing. Thanks and ta. 

I also tend to have a very colorful (blue is a color) vocabulary and I have received a lot of comments from women, not always women but typically women, that are tone policing me. Don't say that. Don't use those words. I won't engage with a potty mouth. How very dare you...Basically don't talk the way you talk because I don't like it. 

When I was younger, much younger, I might apologize for offensive language. But the weak apology, "Sorry that offended you" not actually being sorry for what I did, but that they were offended. When I got a little older I stopped apologizing. I would let them know if they couldn't get past the language to the actual message then I was not the person they should be having a conversation with. 

Both of those things are ways people shut down discussion and conversation. The "I know best and don't approve of what you are doing" messages. Just presented in different ways. Older people locking into the "in my day we..." and never moving past it. In my day women didn't swear and they sure as hell didn't color in coloring books or play online games or jump in rain puddles! And because I don't think those things should happen I will loudly tell you that you shouldn't do them and act like it's wisdom from above. 

Now, I'm not saying you have to get rigid and never learn anything new once you get older, but that does happen. Not always though.

For me, for instance, a huge part of who I am, is questioning things. Why? Why is that like that? How? How does that work? What? What can I do to make things better or easier? That hasn't changed at all. In fact I think I've gotten more inquisitive. The more I learn the more I know I don't know. 

As I've gotten older I've become more and more me, and more and more comfortable with the idea that I don't have all of the answers. What I do know I feel like I really know, right up until I read something, or have a discussion with someone, or watch a documentary that upends it all. I am super comfortable being in a state of constant learning. And exclaiming things like "Holy shit! I didn't know that!" when I do learn something new. Just pure crystalized me. 

I'm also really aware of the aging people around me and what they are crystalizing into. And some of it isn't pretty. Calcified shit is the worst shit. 

Now I just have to find out why this happens, what is going on in our heads, and how we can stop being so rigid in our thinking.