Mid Life Tales.

I am a great observer of people, their behaviour, their mannerisms and how they act generally.

One thing I have noticed is that there is one thing older people are better at than youngsters and that’s being rude!

Some older people have got it down to a fine art. Now I hear on TV and read on the internet that the younger generation are rude especially to their elders. Well I reckon it’s often the other way round.

When I travel on buses I see what’s loosely called the older generation always taking the isle seat as though they are daring somebody to ask them to move so they can sit in the vacant seat by the window. it’s as though it’s their territory, they will sometimes dump their bag next to the window so they are taking up both seats.

When the bus gets full and somebody dares ask them for them to move so they can sit down they give what I call a cat butt face and mutter as they move, normally to sit by the window leaving the newcomer to squeeze on the edge of the seat half on and half off mainly because the person who had to move across has still left a gap between them and the window.

Then to top it off the person who moved will normally get off at the next stop where they will reach right across in front of the other person and press the bell then they will sweetly ask the person on the outside to move. I see it time and time again.

The other thing that happens is that the elderly will get on and ignore the seats where they have priority and sit elsewhere, then when a youngster is forced to sit in a seat where the elderly have priority because they are in the other seats they will be stared at as though they have committed some terrible crime.

Same at a bus stop the older generation will walk in front of those younger so they can get on first, as though their age gives them priority.

Now I am not saying that all older people are rude nor that all younger people are well mannered but I have noticed that if I encounter a rude youngster invariably they have a rude parent close behind.

I firmly believe that children generally only as well behaved as the worst behaved of their parents. I have seen that proven time and time again.

So where does this leave mid life man? Well the answer is confused to be honest, it takes no more effort to be well mannered than it does to be ignorant and rude, in fact well mannered people generally always seem to be happier. So why be  ignorant, rude and miserable when you can be pleasant and happy for no more effort?

The reason is that some people actually seem in a strange sort of way to be happy when they are miserable, it gives them some sort of pleasure to be a hassle, to irritate others and to make those around them miserable. You know those sort of people that if you say to them that it’s a nice day they will answer that it will rain the next day. They never get anything positive from anything.

So I will sit here meditating at the lack of manners generally and the decline of standards in inter human communication. I don’t know where we went wrong or how we can fix it but I honestly think that the lack of manners is to a large extent a product of our fragmented society where people seem to place importance on trivial things and ignore the important bits. Where a smart phone is a status symbol and a normal phone is a sign of poverty. Where parents will buy cigarettes and alcohol and then tell their children they can’t afford the packet of sweets the child wants. Where Please and Thank You are becoming lost words in our language. Where we have no time for others because we have no time for ourselves. Where we have more so called friends on Facebook than we do face to face.

It’s a sad world even for the happy people.

Well here I am with a nice squeaky clean blog, one that I have created for all my thoughts, aspirations and views on this, that & the other.

Will I impress readers I ask myself with my superb understanding of even the most complex subjects? For example subjects like why does toast always fall on the floor butter side down? I mean there must be a reason, but what the hell it is I have no idea. But that example will give you an idea of what heights I aspire to, or of course if you never drop the toast on the floor then what depths I will sink to.

Perhaps I can discover something in my writings, but knowing my luck the most likely thing I will discover is that actually I am not really that good, but as I am fond of saying only time will tell. Many of you who have either followed my other blog or had the misfortune of exchanging emails with me will know I am writing a book, it is a work of fiction. Somebody once said that we all have a book hidden somewhere inside of us, well in my case it must be well hidden, perhaps snuggled in some deep dark place at the back of my mind. All I know is at times I am having a darn hard job finding where it is. Still we will plod on and at the end of it hopefully there will be a completed work that somebody will read and say at the end “I enjoyed that!” If they do I will be a happy bunny.

In this book there is a bit of romance between two people, being a confirmed coward I am playing it safe in that it’s between a man and a woman, but for some reason actually writing it is proving a challenge. This puzzles me as after almost 27 years of being married I thought I had a fair idea of what happens, in what order and where everything goes in the process, but it appears not, so I am looking at that particular part of the book as a work in progress.

I suppose when push comes to shove that’s what life is “A work in progress.” The trouble is that when you’re young you want a fast forward button so you can skip the boring bits and get to the juicy parts. Then when you get older you want a button so you can skip back through the years and refresh your memory as to what the hell happened to you along the way. One question people often ask those who are older is “Would you change any part of your life if you could go back?” Those who say no are lying, of course we would like to change things that’s human nature, the problem 0f course is that if we changed something in the past we may not be where we are now, and where we would be instead might not be as nice. So perhaps it’s good that we can’t change the past and all we can do is learn from it.

Well that’s enough rubbish from me, you have far more interesting things to do than read my mutterings, such as making a coffee and then tilting back the chair and have a doze. Come to think of it that’s a darn good idea, where is the kettle?…………………..