Hating Bobby Jindal and Mortality

Getting old beats the alternative, but it still bites.

I had to come to terms fairly early with the reality that I was older than most successful athletes. Now I know, with absolute certainty, that I will never get the call to the big leagues. Of course, I had a pretty good idea that wouldn't happen by the age of nine - so it didn't eat me alive.

In entertainment, middle-aged men can still be big stars (Hugh Jackman is older than me) - although here too, the that call was always unlikely.

But last night Louisiana's boy genius governor Bobby Jindal made his national debut, giving the Republican response to the State of the Nation. It is at least reasonably likely that he will be President one day, making him the first President younger than me. Since Presidents tend to be in their fifties, I was hoping to put this moment off until I was in my sixties - at which point age and wisdom (or at least in my case senility) dulled the cuts of time's cruel blade.

Looking up Mr. Jindal, it turns out he also, on the side, has become a multi-millionaire. Salt in the wound...

I think of Shakespeare's words in Richard the Second:

I wasted time
and now doth time waste me

Of course, maybe if I stopped mumbling Shakespeare to myself and did a bit of work... I still wouldn't be delivering the rebuttal to the State of the Union.