Because he can be.

You have read or heard a tale somewhere, at some time about a young man or woman (usually a man) seeking the knowledge from the town or village guru who happens to live in a cave near the summit of a mountain, or he lives on the summit itself.

Why does that grizzled, old, sometimes pleasant, sometimes nasty, guru of a guy always live on or near the top of a mountain? Because he can.

While I’m not “old” in the sense of what modern medicine and lifestyles of today can bring, I am old in other ways. I may not be collecting social security and facing mandatory retirement any time soon, but in many ways I’m definitely “old.”

I’m glad for it.

I’m glad I’m at where I’m at, at my age. I don’t envy the young men and women of today’s world, both in economic and in dating/relating terms. In many ways I feel sorry for the upcoming generations. I wouldn’t trade places with you even if I could. Too much horseshit and bullshit. If you guys don’t figure it out, you’re fucked. Straight up. And not in a good way.

But here’s the fun part:

You’ll figure it out. Or you won’t. But the more things change, the more they stay the same. I remember struggling to figure out women and I still don’t fully understand them, but I’ve learned to accept them, warts and all for who they are, and I appreciate them. If you are fortunate enough to live as long as I have, and granted 48 isn’t all that old, hopefully you get some perspective.

That’s what I think wisdom is mostly. It’s perspective. I’ve been around long enough to see certain trends come and go only to come back around yet again, only with a different hairstyle or a different cut of cloth. It’s still the same old same old though. Different packaging, same contents. Get rich and get da gurlz.

Snake-oil used to be sold on a table or in a booth out on the street with the salesman hawking his goods to you face to face. In my time, the snake-oil was sold via television “infomercials” and via direct mailings and catalogs. Nowadays it’s done via the internet and on social media. Different medium, same message. A lot easier today to reach more suckers than before, but the contents in the bottle are still mostly snake-oil, pipe dreams, and empty promises. It is what it is. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Recently Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) has been making a comeback in the pickup circles. Yeah that was a thing back in 1995 when Ross Jefferies hit the scene with Speed Seduction. I remember that time frame. I still have the cassette course somewhere. The more things change the more they stay the same. It’s been roughly 25 years since Ross brought Speed Seduction to the world, the Mystery Method came out in the early 2000’s? I guess we still have a few more years before it’s “rediscovered” and repackaged with a whole new look and a whole new vocabulary, but I’m pretty sure that “neg’s” and “peacocking” will be in there somewhere. Maybe not under those names, but they’ll be there.

What has been refreshing for me though, is I have been reading through MJ’s blog about life as a middle-aged married man. I remember when I first started reading his blog a couple of years ago and he’s revamped it from that earlier time era. When I first found it, he was offering advice on how to make your marriage and/or relationship better if I recall correctly (and if I’m off, I apologize MJ) and now he’s simply talking about his own marriage, warts and all. It’s more a “day in the life of this here married guy,” and it’s wonderful. It’s wonderful because he’s in my age bracket. He could easily be me. It’s wonderful because he’s being honest and authentic, at least as far as I can tell. Most marriage and/or relationship advice that is on a more positive note is either coming from a “pre-1950’s model” where grandma and grandpa have been together since Christ was a journeyman carpenter, or it’s the sad unfortunate “divorce machine” that far too many guys have gone through, or it’s the young to mid twenty-something’s to early thirty somethings talking about being Power Dad’s and Mommy Bloggers with 31 flavors of TradCon and Religion to boot. Life hasn’t fully come around to kick them in the ass yet, but it will. Because the more things change, the more they stay the same.

MJ’s posts are authentic to me because when I read them, I know what he’s talking about. While I don’t have the years of marriage under my belt that he does, I can and do relate to what he is saying. It’s funny to me because I can take what he is saying and add it to my knowledge of what I already know based on my own successes and failures and it makes a pretty neat picture. MJ is definitely one of those guys that I would want to sit down and have a beer with. Two old men sitting on a mountain and talking shit. In this case though, MJ is far closer to a beach than a mountain, and I’ll take that any day of the week, for a variety of reasons.

The “Old Man on the Mountain” is there because he can be. He’s still close enough to civilization to come down once in a while and mingle with the masses, but he’s far enough away to keep away from all the noise and the chatter. And the smells. You fuckers need to shower more often than you do.

A lot of people have accused me of being cynical and negative, depressing even. That’s okay. If you ever got to meet me you would find that while yes, I can definitely be cynical, and that’s because of the shit I have seen and been through, at the same time I have come through it all as a better person as I have grown from all of it and I’m happier for it. I’m far more at peace with myself and with life in general than I was twenty five years ago.

I don’t have the patience or the time to be “fluffy” and blow sunshine up your ass because sometimes life just plain sucks and there’s nothing you can do about it but hang on and ride it out. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either naive or is trying to sell you something.

That’s wisdom for you. That’s perspective. And it didn’t cost you anything but the time it took to read this.

“Old Men On Mountains” just plain old don’t give a fuck. They did what their friends, families, jobs, and societies told them to do, and they probably did it for years. They’ve just realized that none of that shit truly matters and that time is short and so they might as well do the shit they always wanted to do and to hell with everyone else if they don’t like it.

See you on the mountain.

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