I don't mean slugging someone when a hearty, "You stink!" would have sufficed; I mean ... loving life.
I did.
So, when I encountered "old people" who were passionate about things, they seemed powerful and daring, but scary, too. As though they had gone through something so excruciating and shameful that they just didn't care anymore.
It was not until much later that I understood they were free. They still scared me just a little, even then.
You'd think the powers that be were challenging me, or something, because I met many such people in my life. All through school, I was blessed with -- and terrified by -- teachers and conductors who were consumed with their subjects.
After I left school, I sought out such people without understanding why. I went to hear the late science fiction author, Ray Bradbury, lecture -- more times than I can count. He was in his 80s, and he just. didn't. care. About anything.
He'd talk about H. Rider Haggard and writing without editing and the great, lost library of Alexandria, like a nine-year-old hunkered down in a blanket fort with a few hundred of his closest pals.
After all this time, the not-caring is no less terrifying, but it is infinitely more necessary. I have passed the point of no return, still terrified because it seems so much easier for some people -- like these two.
Ron Wood and Paul McCartney are fanboy-ing SO hard in this clip, God bless 'em.
They seem fine with it -- who knows?
All I can say is, if you're over the age of 40, and still letting some superannuated Lampwick tell you how uncool you are, you're doing it wrong.
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