As a fellow old soldier in the Platform Wars of the late 90's and early 00's (and the guy who often gets confused with you, and vice versa), let me welcome you

As a fellow old soldier in the Platform Wars of the late 90's and early 00's (and the guy who often gets confused with you, and vice versa), let me welcome you to Fiddler's Green :-) It's not so bad here. At first, the transition from "guy who does this thing that's really important to me and my tribe" to "guy who used to do this thing that was really important to me when I was part of that tribe" is kinda terrifying. Then you realize that this is the fate of everyone who helped create A Moment, and it's kinda cool once you settle into it. Sure, there are a few people who have the talent and energy to keep forcing themselves into new Moments, but even Madonna is old now, and all she did was stave off her "hey, you used to be that guy!" phase by a decade or so. And at what price? At some point, doesn't chipping away at and polishing and spit-shining and agonizing over your latest cultural product start to feel more than a little bit like slavery? I know it certainly did for me. Being a slave to your own brand is no way to spend a life. Speaking of Madonna, I find that I sometimes identify with interviews given by older musicians, like an interview I read with David Gilmour where he tells the reporter something like, "please stop asking me about Roger Waters... I'm in my 70's and that was only 17 years of my life and it was a really long time ago." When I read that, my first reaction was, "oh man, is that my future?" But my second reaction was, "whatever he thinks of Roger Waters, and whatever he's done since then, he did some amazing work in those 17 years that touched a lot of people and became a part of who they are." There much worse fates than having a truly excellent slice of your work define you when you're 70. There are plenty of other people who've done a lifetime's worth of equally excellent work in total obscurity, and would love for someone to care enough to ask them about any part of it. Anyway, I imagine that, like me, you're not out there looking around for another Moment to insert yourself into, but it could be that a new Moment will find you. After all, isn't that how it happend the first time around? Now, back to work... Fiddler's Green is a nice place to visit and catch up with old friends, but we're both way too young to take up permanent residence here :-)