By age 35, the rise of the middle class should have brought about the end of an era and the downfall of a dynasty. You should find yourself with no master to serve and no devices other than your wit and your sword. #Sanjuro #CloserToFortyThough
@OldBrushNewPaper It's a paraphrase of the opening crawl for "Yojimbo" - my favorite jidaigeki, and one of my favorite movies ever!
The main character jokes that he's closer to 40 when he offers his family name as something like "thirty," so it seemed like an appropriate thing to stick into the "you should have been able to pull off this nigh-impossible investment by the time you hit 35" formula.
@Leucrotta *clapping hands in delight* Oh, now *that*'s wonderful! Well done! I hadn't recognised the source (Yojimbo is an old favorite along with Zatoichi), but I really enjoyed the atmosphere of your riff.
When I was really 35, I feel like I didn't know half or even a quarter of the shit I know now. I would have recognised the pronouncement of those "should have saved" idiots for the BS it was, though. And, if anything, it's gotten HARDER for young people today. (1/2)
@Leucrotta Speaking of which - how have you been doing? If you want to share in public with an internet stranger (as sympathetic as I try to be, sharing's not everyone's cup of tea... er... well, okay, I'll let that stay in rhyme, then.)
@OldBrushNewPaper Things probably are a little more hopeful than they usually feel. Art's been going better and I feel like my response to stress has gotten a lot more flexible and rational lately, but I've still be really stressed. Some of that's politics, but a lot of it is simply work - I've been at a couple of fairly involved temp jobs pretty much non-stop, since January.
How're you doing?
medical issues @Leucrotta I'm glad to hear things seem to improve - amazing what our headspace can do to our lives, isn't it?
We're doing mostly okay: in recovery from a near heart-attack of my husband's. He'd been noticing issues before, so had already been to the doctor.
That meant we were *primed* to go directly to the emergency room at the next sign of trouble. Med staff actually smiled when reporting that his heart had taken no damage. I think they don't get that result very often...
@OldBrushNewPaper I really hope things are going a little better after that scare - that it played out in a little more preventative stuff.
@Leucrotta *smile* we're doing that, now. Although there's less effect in his case - we reckon there was a congenital problem, as his mother died from much the same thing. However, this time, medical science for the win! Stent technology, and catheter surgery, perform miracles.
@Leucrotta LOL I've been seeing a lot of these on Twitter - yours is the first to remind me of a Confucius remark on going through decades of life, ending with how by age 50, he "knew the will of Heaven."
Which I take to mean something like a self-actualised understanding that stood as a foundation against slings and arrows of the rest of society.