I will choose a path that's clear, I will choose free Gorditas.

May 5, 2016

You Can’t Teach an Old Fart New Tricks

Or can you?

Remember Glorious, Life-Affirming, Adrenaline-Exploding, Awesome-Saucing Kickball? Of course you do, dummy. But you stopped playing because you became a boring adult.

Growing up, my brother Brian and I frequently heard this phrase during dinner:

“ARE YOU GUYS GOING TO A FIRE?”

Dad yelled, because we ate way too fast.

Really, we had no reason to eat at bionic speed. It’s not like we lived in the mountains fearing a grizzly bear would suddenly appear and gorge itself on the day’s bounty.

Truth be told, I wish a grizzly bear had swept in and ate our “food,” because Dad’s idea of nutrition was tossing a pound of nuclear-toasted ground beef in with a can of Franco American spaghetti.

Have you ever tried to remove the contents of a can of Franco American spaghetti? It requires Zen-like patience…and a sledgehammer. And when the cylindrical block of red sauce and noodles finally give way, it slowly plops out with a sound best described as —

END SENTENCE NOW BEFORE SAYING SOMETHING YOU WILL REGRET.

As a kid, eating was just one more stupid chore that got in the way of a far greater calling —

PLAY.

Playing was the only thing in the entire universe that mattered. And playing could mean anything:

Transforming a piece of paper into a triangular football and “kicking” it through my brother’s goalpost fingers.
Determining how long G.I. Joe could hold his breath under water before shedding his mortal action figure coil.
Smashing face-first onto Aurelius Road during my first “Look, no hands!” attempt on a metallic-green Huffy.

Yes, ouch is the correct response.

That’s me in 6th grade proudly showing off my hand-made Micronaut City. I had to build my own because Dad was too cheap to buy the official Mego retail version. Or more likely, the retail version was $100+. That was a LOT of moolah in 1978.

I haven’t played with an action figure since I was a teenager.

I’ve been too busy living in the world of boring people (um, adults). A world of so-called responsibility and this strange drive to be successful as defined by western civilization as “How much do you make?”

When I was a kid, nobody pressured me to make anything.

I was fortunate to grow up in a place where we had ample resources.

We had a comfy, middle-class life.

And thank progress, I was born in the right century. A hundred years earlier, I would’ve been forced to mine gold from Andrew Carnegie’s insanely greedy b-hole. If you’ve ever wondered about the inspiration for Tolkien’s “Eye of Sauron,” surprise!

But now, as an adult — I must make a living. That’s fine. I enjoy working. I find my career very satisfying. It’s just, our civilization is so obsessed with this distorted idea of success that we’ve lost touch with the importance of play and how it balances our lives.

There’s nothing like playing b-ball to work off lunch (e.g., that dumb human who thought they could play basketball with Grizzly bears. Doh!). Image courtesy of Katmai National Park and Preserve.

I don’t believe play is only for kids, either.

Look at other adult species in the wild — chimps, wolves, bears, Louie Anderson— when they aren’t searching for food, they play.

“But auGi, animals aren’t intelligent like we are. That’s why they have so much time to goof around.”

Really? Are you saying that:

working your ass off,
getting stressed out to the point of a heart attack,
binge-eating chicken wings,
consuming copious amounts of Wild Turkey,
being angry at someone for not accelerating quickly enough at the green light,
punching someone in the head for calling you a name,
shooting someone with a gun because they look different than you,
or investing billions in research to develop a weapon just to destroy someone on the other side of the planet is intelligent?

Then you need to meet my dog, Peanut.

She wakes up around 10 am, goes outside for a tinkle, eats cottage cheese and kibble served by a willing human servant, lays around most of the day in one of three strategically located doggie beds, loves to go on walks, play tug of war, chase a yellow ball or chew on her best friend, Moose — and she does it all without having to make anything whatsoever.

Yes, her life is made easier by me and my better half. I understand that completely. What makes Peanut amazing is her complete lack of an agenda — there’s no calculation required to chew on Moose. She just chews on Moose. End of story.

Peanut playing with her favorite toy, Moose.

When I get pissed at the individual who failed to anal-retentively organize the dishwasher for maximum efficiency, Peanut stares innocently at me, clearly hoping for supper.

When my wife and I go ballistic about the current presidential race, Peanut rolls on her back hoping for a pat on the tum tums.

When we’re all out for a walk and a brand new BMW X5 cruises by, Peanut doesn’t whine “OH, WHY OH WHY, BELOVED UNIVERSE, CAN’T I OWN THAT PRECIOUS AUTOCAR?”

She can’t whine. She’s too busy urinating on the bushes.

Me and Peanut at the beach. She LOVES The beach.

The one thing Peanut makes (and makes in droves) is unconditional love.

I will add, my better half and I do the same in return. We just can’t help it. Peanut is such a beautiful creature and life with her has made our own lives 100x better.

Plus, because Peanut’s so eager to play, we play more, too.

So, I vote to play more, feel more, not get worked up more, not get mad about what we don’t possess more and hell, maybe stop once in awhile and piss on the roses more.

auGi
Disrupting class since 1979

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