I’ll be 40 soon. I’m not shy to admit it. All things considered, things are going pretty well so far. For starters, I’ve outlived Hendrix, Momma Cass, Charlie Parker, Mozart, Jesus, Gershwin, and the recording career of the Spice Girls.
And I don’t feel much different than when I was 20. However some of my opinions have changed, like, for example: I now think middle aged people are pretty cool.
The interesting thing I’ve found as you get older, is that the world changes around you, without it being considerate enough to tell you it was doing so. Case in point: you know that slightly racist old relative you avoid at family get-togethers? It’s not necessarily that they've become more racist with age, it’s that the world has become less so. I’m writing this article on a phone. A phone. If you’d have told me that in the 80s, I would have thought you meant you were scribbling on a landline with a sharpie. The world evolves quickly, and it can be hard to keep up.
On the plus side, one of the benefits about getting older is that you get to complain about how much better things were when you were younger. My grandparents did it. My parents do it. And guess what—I’m about to do it. And if you’re reading this and thinking, “he’s not old enough to have anything to really complain about,” I say to you: when I was young, people used to respect other people's
