h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm going to be 30 this year, I'd always thought that by this age I'd be a mature person, with not much more personal development left to do. Instead I'm still growing, still learning, about myself as well as about science and stuff.

When will I finally be done and ready to take out the oven?

Just when you start to work out what everything does and how to use it properly, it starts to break down.

Youth is wasted on the young.

You*d think that at 60 I*d be a finished product but I am very much looking forward to all the things I want to do and explore when w**k doesn*t get in the way.
Start my own business, read, travel- exciting stuff to me.
I recently worked out what I'll have to live on, not much but enough.

well, inside I always feel about 17. And my mum told me that never changes, and she's in her late 60s...

John Mellencamp got it right in Cherry Bomb - "got a few kids of our own, and some days I still don't know what to do"

We never really work it out, I think.

"When will I finally be done and ready to take out the oven?"

When you go somewhere miles away from where you live, and see someone you know is a good guide. And no, people from the internet don't count!

> And no, people from the internet don't count!<

They are not 'non people'. They are people too.

I've never really thought in terms of a finished product..isn't that a thing for companies churning out stuff to serve the masses with what will satisfy them..oh well before five minutes have gone and they feel discontented again and want another finished product.

We're talking 'Life'

And yes because its Life its always going to be alive. Alive Alive oh.

Change is not only the only constant
it is constantly changing the way we
see and feel and behave.

Trust me, at 30 you haven't even reached a simmer.
There will be a lot of burbling and bubbling before
the skin on your pudding is skimmable. You'll likely
reach a boil around 40 and some call this the mid-life
crisis but it's really just the time to add the spices
and final ingredients.

I thought I had it all figured out when I turned 60.
Six years on from that I find it quite amusing to think
I could ever have thought it was all finally settling in
for the duration.

Change is the only constant.


~jwf~

That said, and upon reflection, I recall Dr Z
saying he specialised in geriatric research and
care.

I can hear the old folks chuckling from here, grasshopper.


~jwf~

And what's this 'work in progress' alternative? Is there an aim to this work being finished.

Yes of course artists may use this term about a piece of work...but that is only before they will be thinking about making the next thing.

The next thing is always the most important thing.

Neither. I'm a shambling mess.

<>

I remember that .. from the years I got 20 ... 30 ... 40 ... 50 ... and in between when the kids were born .. I expect it will happen in the year I will be 60.

then again .. maybe not

I think you are always a work in progress providing you are doing new things/ getting yourself into new situations. The bigger the change, the newer the situation, the more you (notice) progress.

I suppose that's why the young notice themselves changing more - there are big changes and new situations coming up thick and fast. But very few people get that stuck in a rut that they don't get chalenged in some way year after year after year after year after year after...

Still haven't got the recipe right and when I do, sod's law says I'll be ready for the oven and a new start as a (Rowan) tree.

The number 30 used to be a journalists' sign
to indicate the end of a story. They would type
=30- at the end of the page.

This fact and my strange mind conspired to cause me
to believe that 30 was a significant age to become.

Of course it was a disappointment that nothing special
really happened. Well not nothing, just the usual
ongoing changes.


~jwf~

One should aim to be both.

yes but some of us throw like a boy

I'm more and more convinced that I'm entering my second childhood.

I'm having a nice mid-life crisis in the lead-up to second childhood.

I'm also convinced that nobody's a finished product until they're in the box and the lid's nailed down.

>>I'm also convinced that nobody's a finished product until they're
in the box and the lid's nailed down.<<

Nature has a habit of recycling and regenerating, whilst we live on
in the hearts and minds of those we touch.

ps: I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to
achieve it through not dying. Woody Allen