Like a Sailboat in a Teacup

Over some coffee and chat, an ex-classmate was reminiscing about how, back in the day when we were all teenage idiots, I got so pissed off at one of our mutual classmates that I didn't speak to him an entire year. This happened over thirty years ago, so I'm not sure what productive reason there was to even bring this up. Perhaps sometimes I give people the impression that I'm altogether too impressed with myself and need to be occasionally reminded that I was once a stupid kid.

Which really isn't saying anything much because we were all once young and stupid.

Old and chill.

Now, I don't want to explain things away with the oversimplification that age brings maturity. Not only is that statement intellectually lazy, it is also patently untrue. Let's get real; we all know old people who are immature AF. But what is true is that a wealth of experience, provided one is willing to learn from them, both widens and deepens perspective.

What happened thirty plus years ago

One of my classmates, said something insulting about me. I challenged him to say it again, and like a typical zero-EQ child, he actually did.

Why was I so affected? That's a point of interest; in fact, the main point I am trying to make today.

My world was really small.

It was a time when my world was a teacup filled with water, and I was a little sailboat in the middle of it. Any disruption to that tiny body of water would send ripples through it, and rock that boat violently.

Thus, that little incident rocked my tiny world. I felt disrespected, and in that tiny teacup, this was a huge deal. At that time, I hadn't yet learned the simple fact of life that being respected is often far less important than who respects you.

And now...

It no longer seems important. If I'm being honest, it stopped being important (or even relevant) decades ago. The reason it no longer seems important, is simple.

Decades have passed, and my world is no longer that teacup. At some point, I moved from that teacup into the ocean, and began swimming with the sharks. I began dealing with big-boy problems. I've had threats to my livelihood. Every change in technology. People with power over my career who actively dug their claws in, and made my work life as unpleasant as possible. Employers who resented every cent they paid me to put up with their nonsense, and were just looking for an excuse - any excuse - to get rid of me.

Swimming with the sharks.

And after dealing with all that, I'm supposed to obsess over some silly playground insult uttered thirty years ago? Why would I do that? Matter of fact, why would anyone do that?

Ultimately, my ex-classmate was a stupid kid who thought it was clever and witty to say some dumb hurtful shit to another stupid kid. That's all it ever amounted to. Experience has shown me that everybody is going through something. I might have felt a certain way back then, but did I stop to consider that maybe he was going through something as well, and his mouth just happened to move faster than his brain? No, it was all about me. Like I said earlier, I lived in a tiny world, in my tiny brain.

It's not that I've become more generous; rather, that there are far better things to obsess over. There's a recession coming. The world is at war. A.I threatens to disrupt everything. Like I said earlier, big-boy problems. Even old-man problems such as possible kidney failure, creaking knees and cholesterol levels.

In a nutshell

This is similar to what I said last year about not badmouthing former employers. Not because I'm above that (although I am), or because they deserve my consideration (some of them absolutely don't), but because I have real and present concerns. We all do.

May your teacup always be full,
T___T