I sometimes fail to appreciate that I'm in the perfect age group. For example, in marketing terms, there's often the "Kids and Youth" sector and the "Seniors" sector, two groups who are apparently hugely susceptible to the siren song of marketing.
When you're in that sweet spot, however, from 34 to 65 or so, you're considered marketing teflon. Advertisements bounce off you like bullets against Superman. The real reason marketing bounces off you during that age, of course, is because you have probably children. When you have children, you both don't have time for marketing, while at the same time you become hyper aware as to how ridiculous most of it is.
Aside from marketing, however, the 34 to 65 age group is also a sweet spot for other reasons, which I realized this weekend for reasons that aren't all that clear to me. Basically, I woke up Saturday morning thinking back to when I was 21-years-old, a year during which I both got hit by a train AND detonated a grenade in my parents' backyard. It was a year, in retrospect, during which I unintentionally tried my damnedest to exit this plain of existence.
And I started thinking about it all in terms of age groups, because my mind is warped like that and makes connections no rational person's brain would attempt. Basically, I thought about my 21st year and how much differently it would have been had all the exploits of that year played out now, in my 34th year.
Because, honestly, if you were reading news headlines, and you saw an item about a 21-year-old, or an 80-year-old, detonating a grenade in their backyard, you'd probably dismiss the story offhand as the stupidity of youth or the dementia of old age. But, if it was about a 34-year-old detonating a grenade in the backyard, well, you'd probably read more than just the headline, because really, you'd want to know more about WHY THAT HAPPENED.
For that matter, if you read about a 21-year-old, or an 80-year-old, getting hit by a train, again you'd just assume the younger kid was being reckless, or the older person simply dozed off behind the wheel because his or her favorite jazz tune was playing on the radio. But a 34-year-old? What's the story behind THAT?
What all this means is I'm basically required to be a lot more responsible from now until I'm 70 or so, at which point I can start doing crazy things again and then just shrug my shoulders and say something like "What do you expect? I'm OLD!"
Until then, there's just too much explaining I'll have to do.
Posted by Ryan at January 24, 2010 09:32 AM | TrackBack
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