Something that I’ve commented on in the past is a quote by Douglas Coupland that paraphrasingly states that after a certain point, life becomes nothing but a series of re-runs (it’s from Miss Wyoming, in case you’re wondering).  I still believe this, although I think I’m slowly coming a modified version of this conclusion.

I think it’s safe to say that life, as generally experienced by most people, carries with it what’s almost a default package.  Depending on where you buy your package of life, you may have a couple of varying experiences but by-and-large, they remain the same.  Marriage (maybe divorce), graduations of some sort, first loves, first international experiences, first career jobs, and what generally leads up to the nostalgia of the “good old days.”  A nostalgia that’s really easy to carry, like your first unrequited crush.  It’s also at this point that the re-runs start to happen.  Some of them happen by choice, and some of them happen naturally.  I myself have been in a small cycle of re-hashing the greatness of my youth in the form of rolling 20′s (i.e. tabletop roleplaying). That’s not to mention the entourage of movies from my youth that have landed on my screen(s).  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Army of Darkness, Almost Famous, Office Space, etc., etc., yadda-yadda-yadda.

In short, I have made the decisions to recycle the best of my 35 years.  A choice.  Sure there are are experiences you can’t avoid repeating.  There’s a lot left over that could easily be left in the past.  Instead of looking for, or even creating new experiences, I, as well as millions of others, have concluded that the best years were in our past and so we look to re-live them.  We are all inherently lazy and take what’s probably the much easier, albeit depressing path.  Especially considering that this could be your life for the next 30 years.  And the comes the cancers, the heart attacks, the pills, and watching all your friends and family die off one-by-one, until you’re fortunate enough to join them.

By pointing this out, it isn’t my intention to be preachy (although I think it may be coming out that way).  Like anything else I usually write here (which has been zero for nearly two months), it’s equal parts realization sharing and visual sounding board (I know those two words are incongruent…shuddup).  Plus, it’s also a lot easier to give yourself your own third-party perspective this way.