Here I Go Again

Since I turned 85 I have been abusing my venerable status by inflicting boring recollections and advice on the dear readers of Reckonin’. Forgive me: I can’t help it. But maybe a long life has taught me a few things that some folks might find useful.


LESS IS MORE


In life and writing. We all instinctively want less quantity and more quality in our life, something nearly impossible to find in present society.


Quiet some of the time is a necessary element in living well. My grocery store plays bad canned music. In many offices the TV is on. Even if I turn my back I still have to hear the trivial opinions of celebrity nobodies and distorted news reports. Watching an old classic movie, I am interrupted by disgusting drug ads. In public places, including doctors’ offices and hospitals, I hear people talking loudly on their cellphones and against my will share in strangers’ autobiographies and opinions. Quiet family meals are getting scarce. Many Americans, especially Yankees, fear quietness.


Less is more is one of the hardest things for writers to learn. Writing is partly vanity and self-display, a way of showing off. (I plead guilty, Your Honour.) An intelligent person who really knows their stuff can write clearly and succinctly in conveying their knowledge—sometimes even with a little self-effacing lightness. Most professors and “experts” write with pretentious abstractions and jargon. They don’t know their stuff and are simply adopting fashionable theories.


IF IT AIN’T BROKE DON’T FIX IT


You are just asking for trouble. True, most things these days have planned obsolescence. Even so, many will continue to function OK. Don’t mess with them. If you have old appliances and cars cherish them. Alas, I did find recently that one of my fine working appliances was so old that a part could not be obtained and my car was so old that it could not be addressed in a small matter because it was not on the service peoples’ computer.


Many Americans seem to love clutter. When I see a professor with a badly cluttered office I know that this is someone who never has and never will do anything worthwhile. It is a kind of childish purposelessness.


DON'T DO TWO THINGS AT ONCE


You will usually mess up and show everyone what a disorganised fool you are.  No real craftsman ever does this.  It takes close attention to do anything right.
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FRIENDS


Most of the people you meet in a long life are reasonably decent as long as it doesn’t require much of them. But they are shallow, self-centered, and present-centered. One of the greatest blessings of life is meeting truly good people. They are out there. Cherish them for a lifetime. A few such men and women have enriched my life. I know that their friendship will never fail and that we will fight together to the end for a shared goal.



You can accomplish anything if you don’t care who gets the credit. I have observed often that good and talented people create valuable new ideas and institutions. But there are always numerous opportunists, gifted in manipulation and pretense, who move in and take over the new creation for their own benefit rather than for the intended purpose. This type of personality is characteristic of politicians, especially Republican Congresspersons. They are superficial, opportunistic, and self-referential. They have no ideas or principles except serving their own prominence and profit by insincerely adopting whatever position, usually something meaningless created by ad men, that they calculate will keep them in power. The most successful are often psychopaths without humanity.