Sitting in a Starbucks, thinking. Surely, there is some inherent goodness in us all. I notice kindnesses in the street. Real, genuine kindnesses. More than I ever have before. Maybe I'm more aware now. I am almost thirty, after all. Maybe thirty means you pay more attention. Or maybe this city forces you to watch. Maybe both. There has to be a balance between self awareness and selflessness. Self aware so that I'm not constantly viewing myself from the outside, from what I think other people think. But this is not a selfISHness. To be kind is to consider another better than yourself. To be genuinely kind it must stem from a self aware security, in order to come from the inside out. To notice another should come from the nside out. Coming from the outside in, I can see only myself. But to be only self aware I forget my neighbor, and there the balance is skewed. (Is that the right word? Skewed?)
Thoughts from a Starbucks. From my trusty iPhone.
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6 comments:
"I am almost thirty, after all. Maybe thirty means you pay more attention."
Take it from somebody who reached thirty a few years ago, thirty just means you are starting to get old and are approaching middle age. Any relation to paying more attention is indirect.
MB
Now MB did ya have to use the words OLD and MIDDLE AGE? It's just 30, by golly. 30. 30. It sounds mature and...new. Lots of new things for a new decade. :-)
Yes, I had to use those words. It's what I think about being a thirty something guy. By my calculations, the middle third my adulthood likely starts in my mid to latter thirties. 18+(80-18)/3=35.7 To think about entering middle age in just a few years.... wow. It's not something I thought about when I was 24. But I do now. I think it's part of growing up. I also sing the Toys R Us song less than I did in my 20's.
MB
You should NEVER stop singing the Toys R Us song. Haha.
I'm gonna pretend like I didn't see your mathematical formula up there for middle age.
I still haven't stopped singing the Toys R Us song. I do have young kids who love silly songs like that. I just used to sing it an awful lot in my 20's. My boss at my first job got quite a kick out of my warbling. I think he still remembers me as the engineer who would sing the Toys R Us song at work. However, I think it was part of my denial and trying to still be a kid when I knew that I was an adult with a job, and savings for a house and retirement to worry about.
If you don't like the mathematical formula, you can join the old me in denial. It's really easy, actually. Just throw in an unrealistic life expectancy or extend your childhood indefinitely. Adding 30 years to your total life span and living until 110 gives you 10 more years of young adulthood. You can also insist that you are a mere child until say, 28 and just start young adulthood earlier 10 years later than when you can vote. You didn't actually do that at 18, did you?. I'm not sure that it makes you live any longer, but it pushes out the admitted experience of adulthood and by extension middle age.
MB
Or you can just be an actor and pretend to be younger than you really are. It's great fun.
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