Superman Looks At 30

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Current Mood:  intense

T-minus 4 days, guys.  That’s four short days until I turn 30 years old.

What should I say?  Just give you the usual rundown?  I saw Big Sandy and The Legendary Shack Shakers.  I saw Star Trek and Drag Me To Hell.  David Carradine died.  Christina Ricci broke off her engagement.  I explored Fort Funston alone on a Tuesday afternoon.  I got sick and missed Colin’s wedding dinner, LTB, The Guana Batz, and A Camp.  All those consecutive days home sick allowed me to test what happens when I don’t shampoo my hair for days (erm… dandruff?) and not shave so I could see what I might look like with a beard.  During this down time, I managed to spill scalding water all over my left hand and almost had to cancel the Reno show.  I went to Reno after all, and my car broke down on the way.  Do people still read blogs on MySpace?  Am I wasting my time?  I feel like in the last couple of months, people have abandoned MySpace.  Is it true?

As I approach 30, I wish I had something shattering to say, but I don’t.  Maybe that’s the point though.  I feel like this should be some momentous occasion.  For all the dread and stress that’s led up to it… for all the societal and cultural pressure… I feel like this should be a major event in history.  But something that’s taken a long time to learn, something that I think some people learn when they become parents, something that I have just started to grasp myself… it’s that no one is really meaning parents told you, you are not Superman.  You are mortal.  Your time is finite.  You may be above average, but in the grand scheme of things, you aren’t that different or special from anyone else.  The big dreams you have in youth of being president or an astronaut or an NFL quarterback or a rock star… they don’t come true for virtually any of us, and even if they did, it doesn’t make you happier.

After 30 years, what have I learned?  The things you accomplish, the things you buy, the things you build… they’re just things.  What matters is what you are.  Or maybe what matters is that you are.  I think my happiness comes more and more just from existing.  In the long run, that promotion you got or didn’t get, that car you bought or didn’t, that city you did or didn’t move to… it’s not what makes you happy.  All those decisions can go “right” or “wrong” and either way, your happiness is ultimately dictated by what’s inside you, not what’s around you.

You know, I’m questioning the value of these blogs.  It’s nice to go back and read this stuff, but it’s not unlike scrapbooking.  What a waste of today’s life to spend it chronicling yesterday’s life.  To spend so much time trying to document and capture the past… when our time is so very finite.  It’s ridiculous.  Spend your life living your life, not documenting it for the future.  We won’t be here long enough for this record to possibly matter.  It’s hard to swallow that.  The idea that these dramatic gestures won’t echo throughout history.  That maybe every little thing I say or do isn’t worth capturing for posterity.  I used to think that it was all so precious, but it’s not.  It’s dust in the wind.  We’ll all be dead and gone before anyone has a chance to get serious use out of it.  All that matters is you and me and here and now.

So I guess put another way: I’ve learned to be humble.  Seriously, how can you not be humble in the face of eternity?  We’re all nothing.  If you’re lucky enough to get even 80 years on this planet, do want to spend another futile second of it trying to face down eternity?  Stop living for tomorrow!  I could write more, but I have a life to live damn it.  Time to take my own advice here and stop wasting my night away in front of the computer.  Who knows, maybe I’ll be so lucky as to read this when I’m 40, and I’ll laugh at myself.  When I look at what I thought I knew at 20… well, I have to laugh.

World, it’s been a great life so far.  I hope to take less of it for granted in my remaining years.  I will do my best to always strive to live in the moment, and appreciate every solitary second I’m lucky enough to be here.  I have a lot of regrets, but I’m choosing to use them as fuel to be stronger and wiser in the future.  To the people I’ve known so far, I hope that your life is better for having known me.  Good or bad, I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it weren’t for every one of you, so I thank you.  I’ve always tried to be a good and fair person.  I’ve tried to avoid hurting others whenever possible.  To anyone I’ve hurt, I’m sorry.  I didn’t always have all the answers.  I’m human, and I’ve made my share of mistakes and bad calls.  But I’ve always tried to do the right thing.

I turn 30 this Friday, and all the pressure to make a big deal of it was relieved when the opportunity to play this show came up.  We’ll be back at Ireland’s 32, where I have so many great memories of the early days of TCB.  We’ll play the Smiths and Morrissey we all love so much… and maybe some other stuff too.  It’s half birthday party and half casual TCB show.  I’m just looking forward to seeing my friends and playing a show without the usual rules.  Hope to see you there!

MySpace Archive maturing, meta-blogging, reflection, This Charming Band