I am trying to cut down work nowadays to spend more time with running and reading and roaming around. Today I happened to visit Goodwill looking for old books which are obviously cheap. The walk in this second-hand items store gives me an idea of how things can become in the passage of time. I stop at the electronics section to pay my respects to throw-away coffee makers, printers, old computers, hardware components and softwares. This is how it looks like being discarded: lying on top of a heap of dust-covered objects, recognizable but never desired by anyone except by people who are so outdated or delayed or so poor. On the floor are assorted floppy discs being kicked around by careless steps. I remember how I trembled in excitement the first time I held my first floppy disc more than ten years ago. I remember how sleepless I was in putting a program called Wordperfect in my first computer. It required 14 floppies. And I don't remember anymore what other programs I placed in my HP 2.5 Gigabyte hard drive computer. And then I started tinkering with Linux when only a handful knew what linux was all about (putting my first Linux Os in an old computer was still one of the most exciting moments in my life.) Then I assembled my first computer. Then I went to school to learn computer languages. In those days, everything was exciting to me. I was young, there was a new technology that I could put my hands on to tinker, and life was beautiful.
And now here I am in Goodwill staring at those 12 year old discarded wonders. They are now useless and just merely staring at them makes me feel very old. Oh I am obsessed with getting old. Getting old has been my goal, since birth, as if I live just so I could experience wear and tear and sickness and helplessness and ugliness, or getting useless, or dying. When I was twenty I could not wait to be thirty, when I reached thirty I wanted to become twenty again yet I was curious about turning forty. I thought being thirty was a big joke. When I turned forty, well, I knew then that life was truly a bigger joke. The real joke is this: I am running marathons, going to the gyms, swimming as if in doing so, I could defy the deterioration of my body. I don't know why I seek old age only to defy it. It's like jumping off the cliff just so I could bounce at the bottom and look back at the cliff to say, Fuck off, I conquered you so please get off my face.
Some people like me are cursed, or blessed. I can win the lottery tomorrow and most likely I'd stash the money somewhere and forget about it because I'm way too excited to go to all cheap outlets to buy the cheapest items around. This is the effect of being born and growing up poor. I am just way too happy to survive and I don't care about anything else. When the US stock market crashed (still is), most of my friends and co-workers became nearly catatonic about their 401k losses ranging from twenty thousand to hundreds of thousands and I was staring at them like... asking, "So?"
I never check my stocks and not looking at them through all these years somewhat minimized my losses. I did not know I was invested nearly 80 percent in money market and bonds. What happened was the stocks I invested graduated at one point and their values were turned over to money market without me knowing because... I never checked. They didn't make much, they didn't lose much. Honestly, I never wanted to be rich. I've mentioned this before: as a single gay man, I don't have any reason to earn more than what is enough for me. That's why I invested most of my money to humans. I put my nephews and nieces to college, supported their quest for survival. I did this because I know abilities are way more important than money. In the end, man's ability to survive against the most challenging and perilous times is the true measure of his strength and power and wealth. In the end, education and knowledge bring in the confidence that convert dreams and ambitions into reality.
I could have followed many paths as I lived my life. I could have poured in thousands to a handsome, straight-looking, direct from magazine cover lover like I were his sugar Daddy but if he lacked education, he probably would not know how to use money and squander it without knowing its value. Money easily received is easily spent. And he certainly would abandon me like a stinking toilet when I could no longer supply his needs.
I could also have abandoned my family back home and saved all my money in the stock market. If I did that, not only am I very poor today with the current stock market, I probably have failed my family miserably. I have found out that sometimes, it is better to invest in humans (the right way, of course) than the stock market. Sometimes, it is better to sacrifice a little bit than seek non-stop pleasure. After I put five children to college, my investment returns were much much more than any bull run in stocks. Humans can produce a lifetime income, stock markets sometimes crash and wipe out everything you got.
There is another great investment that does not require too much money. It is personal health. I know people who have millions to spend but their bodies are so old and sick they could never enjoy their money. I had patients who worked so hard all their lives and after a few months of retirement, they sustained strokes and hemiplegia and spent the rest of their retirements miserable and depressed. That is quite unfair to oneself. I can understand that humans always have priorities in life - there is the need for a job to pay bills, kids to nurture, careers to build, hobbies and interests to follow etcetera that health can sometimes land on the bottom of the list. But we all know that a neglected self is an unhappy self. Its future is bleak. What is the use of existing when you are limited by heart problems or diabetes or paralysis? How can you mount a horse, fire a gun, run, dance, jump, swim, play, learn something new? I have friends who live their lives so fully until car accidents significantly altered their lifestyles. Their backs got messed up they are limited in so many functional tasks nowadays. Since they are approaching forty, the fear in their faces is becoming more evident. Who could have thought these guys who go to gyms everyday and who are in every party that cared to invite them have to settle for less work-outs, avoiding strain, walking gingerly at times? It is not even a fault of their own. And we are not getting any younger. So I try keep myself healthy to a point where if I become sick and disabled, it won't be for lack of trying. To me at least, being healthy is the most important component of happiness, comfort and success.
Nowadays I roam in the old familiar Goodwill and second-hand stores to enjoy what I used to enjoy but are no more. In my maturity, I am beginning to enjoy the little things in life, used things, not new, things that are taken for granted by others. I've always laughed with my friends when we talk about being retired. How shall we look like? I would imagine myself wearing those horrible hats, a little bent, carrying a basket of groceries, checking mail and maybe driving very very slow. I may spend most of my time in the balcony, checking out my neighbors, attending to my plants, reading the classics. Occasionally I may go to a bar catering to old men, see if there is anyone who would pass a glance at me, or else, I will hire an escort for a gentle massage. But I won't sit on a wheelchair, I won't be on a bed. I won't be locked in a room to get out only for meals.
That is an image I want to defy. If I can help it, I would like to be a marathon runner until I am ninety. I want to travel and constantly visit families until the law stops me. I want to drive until I could no longer see. I want to enjoy Goodwill and Borders and little sidewalk cafes everywhere in the world until my legs give up on me. I want to be so updated I can talk to a young man about contemporary events and to an old folk like me about memories of the past. I want to be in the thick of things.
And then, at nights, when I am alone in my room, I want to sit by my table and write all the things my mind can conjure. I'd like to read, listen to music, write a piece of journal here and there. And then, in that solemn world, I'd like to remember, I'd like to live in the past as I prepare to wake up to the present.
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