Leonard Susskind says…

A-Girl Note: I missed a WHOLE WEEK. 

It seems my "Merry Christmas Cold" became "New Year's Bronchitis." 

I haven't been this sick in a LONG time. I can't believe how crappy I've felt. In fact, if I wasn't FORCING myself to do this today, it wouldn't get done. So, my apologies for missing last week...I'll make it up to ya. :)

(This is what Leonard says, right here:) 

“The Second Law of Thermodynamics, which says that entropy increases, is just a way of saying that as time goes on, we tend to lose track of the details. Imagine that we put a tiny droplet of ink into a tub of warm water. At first we know precisely where the ink is located. The number of possible configurations of the ink is not too large. But as we watch the ink diffuse through the water, we begin to know less and less about the locations of the individual ink molecules. The number of arrangements that correspond to what we see - namely, the uniform, slightly gray tub of water - has become enormous. We can wait and wait, but we won’t see the ink rearrange into the concentrated drop. Entropy increases. That’s the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Things tend toward boring uniformity.”-The Black Hole War, pg 132

So, I’ve been thinking about this:

Entropy increases…things tend toward boring uniformity.

And, isn’t that what we’re all afraid of anyway? That our great ink spots of youth will spread, depressingly, into the boring depths of middle age? That, we will become those men and women who we’d felt sorry for (and been a bit afraid of) when we were younger? Those minivan driving, mortgage paying, rule making, BORING people?

This fear causes some of us to go to ridiculous lengths to prove that we’re still interesting, still cool, that we’ve still “got it.”  Some of us tattoo our entire bodies, dump the boring responsibility ridden wife and kids for a younger, crazier someone, who makes us feel more “alive,” spend ridiculous amounts of money on silly toys, etc We do stupid things that have horrible consequences and by the time we realize that we don’t really like the consequences, it’s too late. We’re gonna spend most of our middle age, and into the next stage of life, trying to mop up the mess that we’ve made.

I’ve been divorced, I’ve spent money on toys, I’ve seen some tattooed bodies that look amazing -  that’s not what I’m talking about. For some people, a “mid-life crisis” really isn’t. They’ve just reached the point where they have some stuff that they’ve wanted to do and now they finally have the time and money to do it. Good for them.

For other people, it’s a knee-jerk reaction, primarily fueled by this fear that I'm talking about, it’s an “Oh, God!!!" moment to the nth degree. They’ve not learned a damn thing in life. They still think that they can BUY their way to happiness, that "cool" exists as something to obtain. They've missed everything worth knowing in life -that happiness is a choice that comes to fruition through hard work (it has very little to do with outside situations,)  that "cool" is just a fickle, transitory state that changes and means nothing, really.  (In fact, if being myself is not cool, I will very gladly be the biggest dork on the planet. Better to know who I am and be that than waste my time chasing something that is uncatchable. The coolest people I've ever known in my life were those who had the guts to be themselves. Everything else is a lie. And, to me, being a liar is extraordinarily uncool.)

The end results of both scenarios are the same; the causes are entirely different.

That middle-aged, balding, slightly pudgy dude sitting next to the pretty-young-thing in the convertible sports car is a beautiful thing IF he’s doing what he’s doing out of a zest for life and because he's really following his heart and NOT out of denial that he is losing his hair, that the beer belly IS a belly and out of a belief that the horsepower somehow proves that his sex drive is faster than the car.

His ink spot of middle age is brighter and even more interesting than his ink spot of youth was IF he’s let age teach him a thing or two...

(This is not limited to men. We all know that pitiful middle-aged woman who is never satisfied. She’s in a desperate race for one more Botox injection, one more diamond, a bigger house, better clothes, etc. to prove that she’s still young, beautiful and desirable. None of those objects to obtain are bad, in and of themselves, it’s what they represent to this someone that makes them so poisonous. These women are often known by their competitiveness through their daughters - pushing them to excel at harmful levels at “girly” things-the REALLY toxic ones compete against their daughters.
And, I have news for both these types - the man and the woman - life is terminal. Nothing they buy or do will change that. The only thing that really matters in the end is character, how they've lived the life that they had to live.)

...and, let’s just all hope that the pretty-young-thing is his daughter…that idea just makes me feel better, anyway!

There have always been hard times. 

There have always been wars and troubles 

- famine, disease and such-like - 

and some folks are born with money, some with none. 

In the end it is up to the man what he becomes, 

and none of those other things matter. 

It is character that counts.

 -Louis L'amour