Senescence Round 8

100% Eric Burleigh; 0% ChatGPT

With all due respect to Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali and others, the GOATS (Greatest of all Times) in their sports have probably not been born yet.

Wish we can transplant the spirit, unity and enthusiasm of a professional sports team fanbase to unite this fractured country.

Memories of a deceased loved, like a candle, may flicker or dim but the love continues to beat strong.

The concentration and focus of the average American lasts midway between the time spent reading a Tweet or viewing an average TikTok reel.

How soon before we eliminate teachers, classrooms and books for a child’s education and upload knowledge and information by injection of data to their brain?

1776 Continental Congress: Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Henry, Franklin and Adams.
2023 Congress: McCarthy, Gaetz, Boebert, Greene and now George Santos.

Perspicacity of sports and political insights by friends > collective wisdoms of “talking heads and commentators” on TV.

Pickleball acts as viagra for some men of mature age. Both get the blood flowing, creates raised expectations and allows for pleasant times with the ladies.

Mullings of a Mature Man

Senior citizens are like older cars without a gas gauge. Both have travelled many miles and not sure how much time or travel is left.

As years grow, handshakes, hugs and kisses among friends and family are longer.

Photo by Pixabay

Those who are truly happy, if offered a chance to enter a time machine and go back to relive their lives, would decline and say, “I would not change a thing.”

Emptying contents from my mom’s home of 54 years, I sensed fond memories of my youth following them solemnly from the house to the truck taking them away.

One’s definition of “success’ matures with age. Success becomes not so much in what we have but what we contributed with what we had.

If you still believe in 75% of the things you learned or were told in the first 25% of your life, you haven’t been paying attention.

The Oxford Book of Aphorisms (by John Gross) Excerpts

Probably no invention came more easily to man than heaven. Lichtenberg, Aphorisms 1764-99

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I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. Emerson, Essays

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Life is a tragedy wherein we sit as spectators for a while and then act out our part in it. Swift Thoughts on Various Subjects 1711

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Men shut their doors against a setting sun. Shakespeare, Timon of Athens

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Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turned it into a fact. Balzac

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In prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends. Churton Collins 1914

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Love is blind, but marriage restores its sight. Lichtenberg, Aphorisms

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Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

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The fact of having been born is a bad augury for immortality. Santayana, The Life of Reason 1905

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At 50 you begin to be tired of the world, and at 60 the world is tired of you. Count Oxenstierna, Reflections and Maxims, mid-17th century

Melancholy Aphorisms

One often feels very alone standing in the midst of a crowd or a large gathering.
Eric Burleigh

When a friendship is reduced to an occasional wave and a hurried “hi”, it may be time for a permanent “good-bye.”
Eric Burleigh

“Life is puzzle unsolved.”― Santosh Kalwar

“If the pieces do not fit into your puzzle…

Try a different picture”
Cass van Krah

Senescence Round 6

For older guys, Pickleball: Exercise = Viagra: Sex

Ukraine: Their legislators are dodging bullets.
USA: Our GOP legislators are dodging ballots.

Hollywood: A slap results in one suffering a 10 year ban from the Academy of Arts and Sciences
Washington: An attempted overthrow of the government results in one being the favorite for the GOP nomination for President in 2024

I am a hoarder of cluttered life experiences and emotional baggage including insults remembered, disappointments, unfulfilled expectations, envies, failures and missed opportunities. Time to declutter…

My most irrational belief is that people should act and think like I do.

Most men should be ending their political careers at age 70 not beginning or renewing it.

Voters are doing a poor job of eliminating politicians whose ages may be less than 70 but so are their IQs.

In their teens and 20s, baby boomers crammed to study for exams and finish class papers. In their 60s and older, baby boomers now cram to complete their bucket list while they are still healthy and active.

In their teens and twenties, baby boomers pulled “all nighters” which was staying up all night to study or finish papers. In their 60s and older, all nighters usually represent the hours between 10 p.m and 7 a.m. where baby boomers try to get a good night sleep.

Moral Responsibility

Who is more morally reprehensible? The person or persons who commit or initiate acts of murder, violence, atrocity, and treachery OR the person or persons by either their active support or silence condone the evil that is occurring or has occurred?
EAB

Eloquence

“My money was losing 7% every year due to inflation so I decided to invest it in the stock market. Now I’m losing 7% every day.” Not Jerome Powell, Twitter

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“Here we are with a vaccine that can save you from dying or going to the hospital with Covid, and tens of millions of people refuse to help themselves by taking it. Which goes to prove that no pandemic is deadlier than stupidity.” Bret Stephens NYT

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“Humorlessness has crept in its petty pace to the right, where it is conducted with North Korean-level solemnity by the bellowing myrmidons of MAGAdom. A sense of humor, much less self-awareness, is not a trait found in cults of personality. If Tucker Carlson has said anything advertently funny, witty or self-knowing from his bully pulpit, I missed it. Maybe you had to be there.”Christopher Buckley PJ. O’Rourke and the Death of Conservative Humor

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There is no official count of the number of pregnant women who have turned to hospitals and clinics when something goes wrong, only to be denied the medical treatment they need on religious grounds. And it’s not easy to publicize the most intimate details of traumatic experiences in order to prove what should not have to be proved: that pregnancy carries significant risk of complications, and hospitals and medical professionals in a modern society ought to allow best practices, rather than religious dogma, to guide their protocols of care.

Why was a Catholic Hospital Willing to Gamble with my Life by Katherine Stewart NYT

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was asked to evacuate Kyiv at the behest of the U.S. government but turned down the offer. An American official tells me Zelenskyy said, “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”

Pickleball Aphorisms

Success strategy in a marriage partnership: “What’s yours is mine, what’s mine is yours.”
Successful strategy in a pickleball partnership: “What’s mine is mine, what’s yours is yours.”
Poacher strategy: “What’s mine and yours is mine.”

Often I’m more often impressed by the mettle a player displays than the medal a player may display.

To clear their heads in order to think.
Many pray, many meditate
Some dink.

Great pickleball partners aren’t judged by their wins and losses together but the banter, support and smiles as they play.

Close pickleball line calls have sparked more “border disputes” between teams than Russia and the Ukraine.

There are two different types of players when it comes to choosing sides for a game in an “open setting.” One who seeks the surest way to win vs the one who seeks the most competitive game.

Just about everybody enjoys an ESPN worthy moment (great volley, great passing shot etc) during a Meet-up or session.

Pickleball: 2022 = Amazon: 1995