What kind of old guy do I want to be?
The word “Mid-life” is most commonly followed by “crisis” regardless of whether hyphenated words are words or wordseses.
I am not, however, in crisis; though I am in congress, with myself, regarding the other side of the Mid.
Seeing as how my choices are old or dead I figure I should plan for the former. Plans for the latter seem difficult to evaluate for success, ex post dead-o.
So then, what does this sapient bag of meat decide defines it? What inclines its mind at it? What interests it to inscribe or imbibe? To self-define?
My grandfather’s cellar had steep creaky stairs that felt old and sturdy and dusty. There were little shelves tucked into the spaces between the framing of the walls: a pantry for those who remembered the Depression. The descent from the white kitchen and formal dining room was through this calorically fortified dimensional portal into a windowless realm of curiosities. Tools, bits of variously operational ham radios, wires and bolts and parts from old military aircraft provided endless interest, all engulfed by the redolence of pipe smoke.
My father’s, too, though of his was Lionel and Lucky Strikes. My memories of his shop are more fresh, having recently assisted in emptying it.
I have tools and sundry from both, though my shop only smokes when I use a tool wrongly enough.
From Gippetto to Doc Brown, I’ve always been fascinated by the Tinker. Indeed I class myself among them, aside from specific skills in wood carving and nuclear fusion, which I presently lack. Though, in 2021 I gained significant experience points in electronics and soldering, which at least gives me a leg up on Gippetto.
But it’s not enough to tinker, I thinker. Not for me.
Sure, I get joy from the successful application of skills. I was going to say “satisfaction” or “contentment” but those wordseses are unfortunately aspirational. Satisfaction is a transient energy state, not a stable one. A storm that fills the lake.
The lake is made of finished things, and the level is low. The walls of expectation, checkered in cracked-dry clay, frame the carcasses of the haven’t-done and the almost-finished. Every book in my house has a middlish bookmark in it. I want to do all of the things, so i finish none of the things. I need to make things.
This thing, though, is a thing. This violence I do to english. (I didn’t capitalize that on purpose and you can’t stop me from doing it again.)
Each chunk of my brain that I mirror into orderly rows of microscopic magnetic fields is a thing, whether a poem or a joke or a description of my lawnmower, man.
*Tink*
The chisel dulls against the work.
The work is not done.
*Tink*
The work is done.
H
Hoyle talks about things