Here’s the thing: OLD men are great. We know full well what is coming our way and for the most part we don’t flinch, using humour among other things to fend off the Horrible Reality. We are often times given a bad rap described in the most horrible ways generally by people who don’t have a clue what it is to be OLD. They will one day of course. If they are lucky.
So the day I take my advice from Elon Musk is the day I … oh never mind. In any event a recent comment by Musk caught my attention. He warned in rather apocalyptic tones that artificial intelligence is the greatest threat to humanity that we have ever faced. Good Lord man, in a world of hyperbole that takes the cake.
Author’s Note: So I have added the audio file for ‘Stay Awake’ and I feel as though I should apologize to Frank’s wife, who you will hear from shortly. Somehow I have made her sound as though she smokes non-stop, drinks whisky and has whiskers on her throat. That was not my intention, I’m sure her voice is perfectly pleasant. I think I’m projecting.
Now I have no idea how Perfectly Sensible Tony lost this debate to Typically Ridiculous Tony, but he did. “And out of the house I went car keys in one hand, the forefinger on my right hand tucked into a belt loop at the waist of my pants. I assured myself that would be sufficient.”
As I put the car in ‘park’ and opened my door Bad Tony was gleeful.
“That’s right Tony. I am so proud of you. Go on give it to the old bugger. Who does he think he’s playing with.!”
I walked behind my car and locked eyes with the driver of the Lincoln. He was old. Which is one of the more ironic things I have ever written because I am old as well. So old. Good Tony was aghast.
Goldie leaned down as Bailey gently brushed her mane, “I’ve taught her how to love. How to love with all her heart. Taught her to understand that it love can be painful sometimes. I know she’ll be very sad when I die but I hope she’ll understand that it is the best way to live, it’s the only way to live. To be in love is okay, tears and all, it’s okay.”
I remember during the Christmas holidays how my parents would raise a toast to ‘Absent Friends’. It was not a passing moment either, they would both privately linger obviously thinking back and remembering. I joined them of course but I didn’t get it, not really. How could I? I was a callow teenager. I had no absent friends.
These Stories from Afar are not important stories, they are just my stories, little nuggets from a lifetime of living. I hope that in the listening they offer some pleasure, some amusement and some insight to my place in time, the path I trod and who I am to you be that as a parent, grandparent, a friend or a stranger.
Writing for profit is a fool’s game. I don’t, I write for myself. Some of my writing is profound, some is important, but most of it is neither of those two things. I am at my best as an observational humourist, filtering the mundane through the ‘amusing’ lens and writing.
David Sedaris is a great American observational humourist and he has unknowingly guided me as I spelunked my way through many a dark, confusing writing tunnel. He taught me to stop worrying about inspiration. He says that human beings are very funny, hilarious at times. The knack he says is to get better at seeing it. He is right, if I have grown as a writer it is because I am better now at ‘seeing’ us as we are, simple and complex, shallow and profound, tragic and hilarious. We are endlessly fascinating, a never ending source of writing inspiration.
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