Getting Old

For the first time, I feel old. My body has been telling me that
with every injury, with every wound that takes forever to heal.
But my mind has always been sharp—until yesterday.

Yesterday I told Wendy I was using Evernote. Just trying it out,
nothing serious. She immediately shared her screen with me and
showed me all the cool stuff she was doing with it, how she was
using every little helper function they included: tags, saved
searches, automated toilet flushing. I was unimpressed: I have no
need for all this, I can flush my own toilet, thank you very much.

Yet there was a moment of realization that I was refusing to learn
these tips and tricks. Once I saw it as a choice, I wondered, Am
I afraid of learning something new and complex? The whole time
I’ve been telling everyone, including myself, that I like simplicity,
that I live a simple life. But I never noticed the latent fear of
learning yet-another-thing.

Maybe I’ve grown wiser, less easily impressed by complexity. Maybe
I’ve learned that complexity is usually glitz and glam but when it
comes down to it, it’s just distraction from getting shit done.
That’s what I like about simplicity: it cuts away all the bullshit
and lets me see whether the thing works or not, period. It is very
obvious.

Maybe I’m just old.