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August 12, 2010
where ARE my glasses, anyway?
Sure, there are better athletes than me. Much better. And there are certainly more likable guys. Better looking guys. Better singers. Better cooks. My whole life, I could count on someone being better than me at pretty much everything. But I had one important refuge: I could count on being among the smarter people in the room.
And much like the beautiful, I've flaunted what I have. My brains have always been how I differentiated myself. I would look at folks older than me, their onetime beauty diminished by the ravages of aging. I would look at how bitter it made them to have lost their beauty. They could scarcely function now. And I would feel superior. What made me special, after all, would never be diminished by age.
And then I aged, and I became a moron. The neurons are flaking off like an arctic storm, now. I can neither remember what I did yesterday nor perform work tasks that I could do in my sleep just five years ago. It's horrifying. It's humbling.
All in all, I would rather have been hot.
posted by john at 11:19 AM • permalink