So I Was Thinking

It's been an awful long while since I had one of my Peter type rants. You know the ones, where I complain about things that annoy me and what really gets my blood boiling. I don't know that I can raise that level of venom anymore. Maybe it is old age or something. Nevertheless there are still a few things that bug me.
I love my blog, not the way I love Shannon, or football, or, TGI Friday's Chicken Wings, but I do love it. I understand that when I blog about blogging that it is sort of meta. I love to have a place to write whatever I want. And generally when I put effort into, I think at least that it turns out to be an enjoyable few minutes for me and hopefully for my readers. And so I write. Not just for me but for the people who read and enjoy Pete Chat. I loved it when people would say to me, oh I read your blog. It was a great bit of validation for me as a writer ( I use that title in the broadest and least snooty sense possible). I like it when people comment and give me feedback. I used to say that my entire life was validated by blog views, and facebook likes. I'm not sure that has changed all that much. No particular offense is meant, so no particular offense should be taken.

There's an ass in this picture (and a Donkey)

The heyday of blogging in my opinion was 2007. Everyone it seemed had a blog and they would update and post and it was a great way to figure out just what people were thinking and doing. Now, not so much. I bet I have twenty blogs in my Google reader that never get updated. I wonder if people just got too busy with life, they decided it was to narcissistic, or just lazy. It just isn't like it used to be. In any event I was reading a few of the blogs that actually do still update and I began to get annoyed but for very different reasons. Now I can honestly say that I told myself many times that if I was ever so lucky to get married that I wouldn't become one of those holier than thou people who tells all the single people how they had figured it out and suddenly became an expert.

 There is no magic formula for dating success other than putting yourself in good situations. But really I got lucky because a beautiful and tall bunny came up to me at a church dance. Simple as that. I cannot go up to the podium and tell people do this, do that, and look down on them smugly as I have often experienced myself in the last ten years where getting married was being being thrust upon me. But as I look at blogs and Facebook I see two vastly different situations from my own.

There are the friends that became parents. And while their lives have certainly changed (huge understatement) they haven't gotten in my own not so humble opinion any more interesting. Yet from the comments they receive you'd think that they had given birth to the most beautiful, majestic, and overall fantastic offspring in the history of the known universe. "Oh your baby is so cute." "Oh you must be amazing parents!" Blah blah blah. “Junior did a number two, why don't you bronze it?” ( I made myself laugh with that one). Undoubtedly the time for "adventures" has come to a standstill because child rearing has, as it should be, become your number one priority. I'm not blaming you for this. I get the whole go forth and multiply thing, I just miss when you used to be fun and interesting. You are too cool to get old and lame. Stop, you don't have to. Keep doing and writing interesting things. I'm cooped up in an office translating documents from Danish English to Israeli English (among other things), I'm asking you to bring a little sunshine to my fluorescently illuminated life. (That being said I go to the beach every day after work, say it with me BEACH PLEASE!)

I wrote like three years ago where many of us had come to the stage in life where things weren’t changing too much. And at the time it was very true for me. Same parties, same people, same life. Rinse and repeat. And then somewhat suddenly it was different. New relationship, new school, new life. I was hanging in Malibu, working for the Lake Show, and meeting new people. And it was (is) awesome, but I look at blogs and I Facebook and I see my friends doing the same things they did the year before, and the year before that, and the year before that. The same people doing the same things. Doesn’t that get boring? Are you failing to progress. If you are doing the same things, with the same people aren’t you just bound to have the same results. Maybe you are perfectly content with this. But I can say from my own experience that I don’t think you are. Doesn’t that bother you? Shannon sometimes gets bothered by my inability to stay in one place. I moved to Malibu, and now I’m in Tel Aviv. I remind her that a rolling stone gathers no moss. After six years in DC there was some moss on me and I needed to get rid of it. Will Leitch the founder of Deadspin, described it this way:

"As we get older, we have so few moments of real consequence that we usually don't even notice them until they're long gone. I swear , 67 percent of conversations at parties in the last year have gone exactly like this:

Me: How's it going?


Other Person: Good, good.


Me: What's been going on? Haven't seen you in a while.


Other Person: Same stuff.
Me: Yeah, me too.


We have entered the Same Stuff stage of our lives. I used to get this from my friends who married early, or had children young. Now I get it from everyone, and I give it to everyone. I might have to accept that the person I am now is the exact same person I will be 30 years from now. Same Stuff. Happens to everybody."

But I'm now convinced that it doesn't have to be. In school I took particular umbrage when we were studying libertarian paternalism. Basically making choices for people that they weren't making for themselves, but giving them the option to opt out if they so choose. I get bugged anytime someone tells me they know what's good for me. So maybe this advice isn't for you. But if you find yourself going on the same stupid outings (maybe the faces or the locations change but really it's the same junk) change it up. Do something different. To use a baseball cliche, change your approach at the plate. (It worked for me and it worked for Albert Pujols).

Do something different. None of this same stuff anymore. Think of me as the guy shaking you.