People who have all the answers are profoundly compatible with others as long as those others are looking to do exactly as these hypocrites proscribe. Some years ago, I bought 38db sound-blocking earplugs because I couldn’t stomach listening to a majority of the conversations I tune into when I’m out in public. Yep, I’m that intolerant of self-righteous, bloviating idiots, not in recognition of their disconnect with current situations. Sorry to those of you who believe that any other time in history (meaning during your lifetime when you were younger) was a golden age of perfection. No time has ever been more perfect than the current moments when we recognize we have woken to experience yet another day. If we are adaptive and flexible to meet the circumstances of that day, well, that is another question.

I recognize that I’m not an expert on anything at all, not what I might want tomorrow, what I could like next week, or even if the little I think I know will still be true after my next conversation. The only certainty I have at all is that I should try to remain positive and open to allowing my curiosity to guide me into tolerance.

Do you know where this is going by now? That’s right, I all too often have to listen in on old fucking boomers sanctimoniously going on about the problems of the world caused by young people, social media, Biden, inflation, technology, Jeff Bezos, some asshole they encountered just an hour ago, immigrants, the Chinese, Muslims, and the host of other worn and tired subjects the boomers and those like-minded turds excrete on a daily basis in my presence. Yeah, I know; just stay home, John, and stop putting yourself in their path. And I’ll be the first to admit that one of the luxuries I’m able to indulge in from time to time is being somewhere I don’t speak the language so I can avoid the “polite” inanities of an aging or stupid populace.

Look, I don’t really care about age or education, but if you fall into intolerance or poor education, stop claiming you have all the answers and insight you don’t know shit at all about. Say after me, “I know very little about the complexity of the world, and I’m okay with going about my life to the best of my ability.” Now, if, after reading this hyperbolic diatribe of anger, you might be inclined to think that I’m exactly the person I claim to abhor, you’d be wrong. I don’t watch TV, so I don’t have to filter the incredibly vulgar stupidity from the few grains of valuable entertainment that might be there. However, I can’t turn people off from putting on a public display of how profoundly disconnected from reality they are (in my opinion). You nor I have answers for much anything at all aside from what we should have for dinner tonight or where we should vacation.

The arrogance of our age is hampering our recognition of just how collectively dumb we are. Finishing school, be it high school or university, hasn’t granted us enlightenment status, nor should “finishing” mean we abdicate our responsibility to a lifelong process of learning.

Here I am at 59 years old, and I still want to try what I’ve not tried yet: visit museums and gardens to gaze upon beauty and go to faraway places with the hope of discovering something that is usually a gap or bias within myself. I want to dance to Korean pop-folk from Leenalchi and feel melancholy listening to trans artist Ethel Cain sing about god and guys. If a 20-year-old young student can broaden my horizon with their perspective, maybe they are giving me insight into how others will be seeing the world tomorrow. I should listen and not try to convince them they are wrong.

I want to exit this life in love with all that I was able to smile and laugh about. Scowls and dismissive condescension don’t mean shit and certainly won’t make for happy.