By then, you've had ample worldly feedback. But you ultimately decided "I gotta be me."
The usual thinking is this: "Those who wish to reap the rewards of being around me need to prove themselves by putting up with me. And I’m worth it."
It hardly seems worth mentioning that such a person never is worth it. Because they're the sort of person who'd gladly collapse into being a jerk. And there's a word for that: "Jerk".
A 20 or 30 year old jerk might grow out of it. They may be momentarily distracted or confused. Forgive them, for they know not what they do. But by age 60, you've had a red line drawn for you beneath your awfulness very many times. You can try to disregard it, or shrug it off, but you are well aware. You've merely practiced self-forgiveness. So you're cool with it.
By that age, we've spent enough time in the kiln of worldly feedback that we ought to be just about perfect. If you'll think about it, it's strange that people can maintain their jerkiness for the better part of a century. It's not because they're busy, or oblivious, or their faculties have begun to fail, or terrible things have happened to them. No, none of that.
It's that they've made peace with it. They're fine with it.
Corollary: I've previously observed that old people don't repeat stories and jokes due to failing memory. They do it because of failing to give a fuck about forcing us to sit through the same stories and jokes. They have self-forgiven.
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