Philosophy of Forty-nine. Opus One.

It's not like I woke up one day and realized that my attitude had shifted. It was a gradual process. Over time, the little things that once pissed me off became insignificant because I now save my loss of patience for bigger things - like stupidity. I had a long list of things that now piss me off, but really most fall under the category of stupidity:

1) Administrators and managers who spend countless hours dreaming up pointless directives to impose upon the people who do the actual work. Stupid.
2) Politicians who worry about their careers more than they worry about the people who elected them to office. Stupid.
3) People who make judgments about people without knowing much of anything about the person they condemn. Stupid.
4) People (particularly women) who marry thinking they will find self-fulfillment in another person. Stupid.
5) Journalists who report opinions as facts in order to please their advertisers. Stupid.
6) Shortsighted individuals who fail to see that the global community is interconnected and interdependent. Stupid.
7) Drivers who think it's important to get to their destination 30 seconds faster by passing other cars at dangerous and reckless speeds. Stupid.
8) Addendum to #7: ANYONE who thinks their time is more valuable than mine. A caveat - I can think of a few people whose time I think might be more valuable than mine but few of them are still living. My time is pretty damn valuable. So is yours.

I could go on and on, but as you see - it all boils down to stupidity. Later this year I'll be 50 years old. When you approach this milestone, it seems prudent to spend some serious time prioritizing what you consider to be important and worthwhile in your life. I have begun to challenge my own ideas of what is sacred, moral, and true. Maybe stupid people don't give serious thought to these things. If you're stupid, however, you haven't read this far, so I'm going to assume that you, my dear reader, are not stupid.

Because I have a strong sense that I am not alone in my forty-nineness, I have decided to blog about these things that I ponder, in hopes of finding a kindred spirit or two who are also spending time on thoughts such as these. Leave me your thoughts if they are kind-hearted and come back often.