Causeries by Isak : Ranting around

"This is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". - W. Shakespeare

Taking a bus or train is always invigorating. You see all these people, and as an extra serving you’ll come to know lots of their families and neighbors, their likings and dislikings and their favorite civil servants. If you end up eavesdropping elderly co-travelers, you’ll hear the latest news about their grandchildren, what the weather has been like the last days and century and then you’ll definitely hear what’s wrong with the physician they saw last week and the young people these days. The physician was one them. He couldn't tell the difference between a hurt toe and a blueberry.

The young people I have met, or just listened to, move too fast from one topic to another for my liking. However, every time their doings sound very much the same; only the venues change, or the someones they did it with. If you try to find some logic, it is so easy to get lost. Their jargon is like a hockey game; attacks from one end to another follow in fast succession, and random shots of obscenity are made in order to woe the crowd. The shooter will beg for applause with a rapid glance at the yes-men. The elderly do not care; they always got it right. Moreover, the youngsters have a dialect I hardly understand, or then my comprehension filters haven’t been updated. So, for being able to provide you with accurate quotations, I have to confine myself to the talks of the not-so-much-teen-aged as I'm myself approaching the so called mature middle-age. Darn... who is talking: is it me or THEM!

As I mentioned, commuting is an excellent means for seeing people. Quite a few have eyes in the back of head, but nowadays there is a solution also for that deficiency. Cell phones, that once upon a time were only for exchanging the latest gossips, nowadays have a camera for taking selfies. I've discussed the actual essence of the selfies in another writing, but in this case it's the opportunity to take an over-the-shoulder shot that attracts me. When seemingly taking a shot of something in front of you, you actually are able to videotape (sound included) all that's taking place behind you. In a commuter train, this is an extra advantage for memorizing the peoples' talks for later processing - and ranting. Some might call it "interfering in individuals' privacy", but I call it "trying to hear what they are talking about".

Quite clearly, the weather is an all-time favorite. After this long, dark and warm winter, we're supposed to expect something different, but who is ever happy. Listening to the elderly people is something we should do carefully as they have a long experience of being uncomfortable with the weather, and they do know. Whatever the weather is in summer, there's always something to complain about. If it's not the actual temperature, there's always the unfit clothing, bugs, too bright sun, and sour milk. Sweating may become a problem if there’s any of it left, and the luminous nights may compromise your sleeping rhythm. I don’t even start talking about the annual moving into the Daylight Saving Time. We in the mature middle-age should know almost as well as those over-something-years, but we still have some of our good memory left, and we’re able to see the bright side of the coin as well. Unfit clothing is called “out of fashion” or "laid-back", the bugs are almost like the “crickets in the Mediterranean” (if we still hear them), too bright sun is simply a good reason to have new shades, and finally we don’t drink milk. Sweating is called perspiration as it sounds more sophisticated, and it's only the sign of some remaining vigor. The DST doesn't bother us because most of us do not have cows, and we don’t milk them. Sleep deprivation is only for constant complainers and hypochondriacs. But wasn't it exactly us baby-boomers who modified the world we live in!

Perhaps we baby-boomers really did polish the present computerized way of living, but we definitely had nothing to do with some of the contemporary music styles. Computers and other such gadgets have become niftier and lighter, but contrary to that much of the nowadays' music is heavy - literally. The young in these days often complain how hard it is to carry the load their fathers forwarded to them on their shoulders, but I'd say that the "heavy" music alone will make a half of it. Why do the young so seldom complain about the DST? Perhaps it's because of the heavy eyelids they have.

Then of course there are those who do nothing but sit and stare in a commuter train. They hardly have the energy to have a look at the morning papers strewn about the seats and floor. On the other hand, there is a chance they're doing the same as I do, but with no other recording device but their memory. In my opinion, trusting on pure inborn memory is a huge liability. Forwarding slanted or completely false information may entail dire consequences, of which there's lots of hard evidence. It's even worse if the data is randomly collected, and retrieved from the memory only if required. The complete opposite to the previous is (presumably) a council clerk, whose conversation can be heard in the next car: