The Three Age Groups

Getting old does funny things to a man


Human beings have many arbitrary forms of allegiance one of them is age. It can be so important to an individual’s identity to be different from the other generations that in some circumstances they would be horrified to be even seen in company with them. There are three main age groups.

The young age 0-25: they live in denial about death, are in a constant state of rebellion and discovery and have very little hard work to do, thus their amazing capacity for sitting around taking brain retarding drugs and generally misbehaving. Their main contribution to society comes from this unofficial medical and psychological research.

The workers age 25-65: they are often too busy to think about death because they have to work for material gain to support themselves and the lifestyles of the young and the old. This task is admittedly made slightly easier by the design of making old age a second childhood. If a worker is spoon feeding their child they might as well be spoon feeding their elderly parent at the same time.

The old age 65 and onwards: they do not have to do any work anymore. Nonetheless they are so depressed by what their children have done to the world they created they often look like they would happily fall down and die at any moment and are only staying alive out of pure stubbornness. They are characterized by a belief that society is getting slowly worse and worse, a belief that all stories about the past no matter how obscure or pointless are very interesting and a cast iron refusal to try any new food dishes, especially foreign ones.

Cities

Humans either live in the country or the city. The country has lots of animals to stroke and eat and plenty of green, open spaces. The city also has lots of animals, unfortunately you cant eat or stroke any of them because they are vermin; rats and mice that carry disease and break into your house to steal food, or Pigeons who hang around in gangs in public places preying on naive tourists. Also unlike the country the city does not have many open spaces or pleasant greens. Possibly to make up for this fact city dwellers are obsessed with knocking down the walls in a building and making it ‘open plan’. No city dweller worth their salt wants to work in an office that is not ‘open plan’ or has not considered having a wall in their home ‘knocked through’ at some point in their lives to make an ‘open plan’ kitchen. To be fair things can get pretty crowded in a one bedroom city flat once a rat has moved in and without removing at least one wall there is no way the two of you will be able to turn round in there.

Before cities were set up it was common for visiting armies to rampage through the country destroying crops, stealing livestock, burning down homes and being rude to strangers. Humans found that by grouping together in large numbers and erecting some form of defensive structure such as high walls around themselves, {possibly with a sign up saying ‘Vikings Not Welcome’} they were better able to defend themselves and thus created the city. However nowadays in times of war, what with missile and artillery technology, having a large group of humans packed together in one small place is one of the surest ways of getting a large group of humans killed in one go, another way is telling everyone in a city there is a sale on at their local IKEA.

Cities are also notorious for high crime levels. If you are being attacked in a city street yell ‘fire’ instead of ‘help’. If people hear ‘help’ they will assume that someone else will deal with the problem. If you yell ‘fire’ people will be curious to see the inferno. They will also see the problem as one that could directly affect them if unstopped. Note: if they do come running and find you are actually being attacked instead, this may be slightly awkward at first. Also note to get a city dweller to do anything there has to be something in it for them.

Cities were also intended to help with economic efficiency. They have had complete success with social efficiency as everyone in a city is now too busy to talk to anyone but financially it’s been more mixed. Some make fortunes in the city some live in poverty all their lives. Greater efficiency can mean greater unemployment, which when coupled with the increased access to drink and drugs can make some parts of the city pretty inefficient indeed.
If you are lucky enough you could use the cities resources to make a fortune and then move out. This is the classic English approach to their capital city of London. London is more like a geographical vortex than a city; no one knows where it begins or ends but people come from all over the world to London in the hope of earning enough money to live somewhere else. It has long been the attitude of the English that success is defined by a persons ability to live outside London and only go ‘to town’ under the most pressing of engagements.

Coping Strategies
Some people try to have the best of both worlds by ‘commuting’ i.e. living in the country and working in the city. In many cases this leads to the worst of both worlds and a feeling of being very, very tired all the time.

Queues- because sometimes life's not short enough.

In early times queues were seen as a novelty.


One of the most frustrating parts of everyday life on earth is the fact that humans will invariably have to stand one in front of the other in a line in order to receive goods, services, and carry out various business transactions. This process is called queuing. Humans also find that even moving from one place to another can lead to queues as other people will often be traveling in the same direction by the same means. Its incredible that despite the amount of technological and human resources dedicated to servicing humans needs instantaneously and no matter where a human may be going or what a human may be buying be it a pint, ice cream, or scuba diving gear they will inevitably not be the first person at that point in time on that day to have that idea. Even if the human is not there in person to queue they still often find themselves in a queue on the telephone or the Internet. There will be nothing for it but to form a queue and wait….and wait…

The queue takes on a social significance because it happens to everyone. Some societies pay closer attention to the unwritten rules of queuing than others but it is generally accepted by most humans that the queue should work on a first come, first served basis regardless of race, religion, creed or status.

For those societies that pay almost sacred regard to the law of the queue attempting to get served before a person who has been waiting a longer time than you is to imply that you are somehow a better, more worthy human being than them; their sexual, intellectual, physical and social superior. If a person accidentally obtains service before someone else who has been waiting longer they may be politely reminded of the queues order, they may be aggressively insulted as to the arrogance of their nature, or they may be completely unaware as they obtain said pint, ice cream or scuba diving gear that the person in the queue behind them would gladly see them choke on the pint or the ice cream or even help them choke on the scuba diving gear if there were fewer witnesses.

Coping strategies

• The best advice is to get their early or pre- book where ever possible.
• If you have the options it’s always best to queue in the comfort of your own home via Internet or telephone.
• Generally people find their elbows and arms in packed queues are good tools for queue burrowing.
• If the queue is taking place in person tall friends are good allies, but the best are beautiful blond women with large breasts, in fact just beautiful women in general have an immense power over the average queue.

Politics and Family - "But why?.... Because I said so"

'When it comes to a good game of musical chairs politicians never grow up.'
In order to deal with large problems humans find it necessary to form large groups. Unfortunately it’s impossible to get a group of humans to all agree on anything unless it’s how much they disagree with another group of humans. Many different systems of government have been used to try and compensate for this condition. None of them worked. So they tried democracy. As Churchill stated, quite literally, democracy is the worst form of government ever tried, except for all the others. If a large group needs to come to a decision then every member has a vote on what should happen or who should lead them and it is the opinion with the most votes that is put into action, therefore a unanimous decision is not necessary. The most essential elements to a modern democracy are;

1. Free and fair elections.

2. A free media so that the people who voted for the other side can complain and remind us of that fact ad nausea.

3. A rule of law that guarantees all those accused of any crime a fair trial, under law created by elected officials, exercised by a court and judge acting independently of those officials, operating with all citizens accountable and equal before it {except for the President or the Queen or Diplomats or people who can afford much better lawyers than everyone else or.., well as stated the systems not perfect yet}.

If democracy is the best method humans have found for running a society the best method they have found for raising their children to prepare them for such a society is anything but democratic.

This is an actual transcript of a parent child conversation.

Parent: Didn’t I say you had to be back by nine?

Child: But I am only half an hour late.

Parent: Nine means nine.

Child: But all my friends are allowed out till ten.Parent: Well you’re not so I’m afraid you’re grounded for tomorrow night now go to you’re room without dinner.

Of course in a fair trial a person cannot be prosecuted or judged by their parents and yet as we see here parenting actually consists of very little else. It’s nearly all a process of prosecution and judgment. ‘What are you up to? Where are you going? What are you doing with that?’ These are the prosecuting questions children hear all the time followed by the summary judgements; ‘Get down. Get up. Get out. Put that down. Go to your room. Stop it. Be quiet.’ and we allow this desecration of jurisprudence and silence of free speech to take place in family homes on a daily basis. As if that were not bad enough the parent in question is both prosecution and judge and will often pronounce an arbitrary punishment that is both cruel and {outside the confines of the family} unusual. Not even murderers are sent to their punishment without dinner, even if it is their last meal. Attempts at mitigation and appeals to the democratic majority of their friends are useless for the child. What’s more the child is never offered a professional defense counsel who could represent them in an argument or ask for an out of home settlement. The child more often than not is forced to admit their guilt in this show trial against the blackmail of further punishment and only offered the ultimate solipsism as explanation: ‘Because I said so.’

Coping Strategies: A child can now divorce their parents and apply to a court to have their status as legal guardians removed making the child a ward of the state or the court until suitable arrangement can be made. This really should be a last resort by desperate children and yet is more commonly used as a first resort by greedy child stars that want all their money for themselves.