The Random Comic Strip

The Random Comic Strip

Words to live by...

"How beautiful it is to do nothing, and to rest afterward."

[Spanish Proverb]

Ius luxuriae publice datum est

(The right to looseness has been officially given)

"Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders," wrote Ludwig von Mises, "no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way for himself if society is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore everyone, in his own interest, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle."

Apparently, the crossword puzzle that disappeared from the blog, came back.


Thursday, June 28, 2012

I am no longer the man I never was


There are a bunch of ads of late for testosterone replacement/enhancement products... such as Ageless Male. You've seen them on TV or heard them on the radio. I doubt the products work but I cannot prove that, or disprove it either. Nobody important (like maybe the FDA) seems to care enough about these products to investigate them.

I don't either. As my post title implies, the image of the man I used to be is heavily tainted by the man I have become. Or, as I like to say on the golf course, "I was never the player I used to be." Nobody seems to get the joke, though. Maybe it's my delivery. I was never a comic though I often got a lot of laughs.

I am pretty sure I know why there are a lot of these products. The aging of the Baby Boomer generation. We are not aging well, as a group. And we don't like that. We want to be our 20-something selves; not the flabby, sagging, unattractive (except perhaps when clothed), guys we seem to have become. I suspect, as my title implies, that we were never those guys. Oh, some of us were... some of us were in great shape and were active and full of energy. But not the vast majority of us.

We were fat or skinny, with/without scraggly beards, and lazy.... pretty much younger versions of what we are today. Some of us were even going gray in our 30's, some were going bald, some had paunches (a euphemism for "beer bellies"), some had flabby thighs or skinny legs (me). 

But now we want to be what we never were. And, true to P.T. Barnum, there is an army of those willing to take advantage of us.


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