Not sure when it started. Five years ago? Ten? But in the last decade anyway. I’ve become quieter. Not less opinionated, heaven forefend. But quieter. More observant. Half a dozen casual observers have leveled this accusation over the last few months. Ask anybody that’s knew me before the Obama administration (and no, I’m not BLAMING the Obama administration, just using it as a time marker.) I was mouthy. Loud. Obnoxious. Never met a conversation I couldn’t jump into with gusto. For astroturf? I’d take the anti side. Against it? I’m all pro. I’d discuss, debate, argue just for the FUN of it. Tell a joke, if it fit. Correct grammar. You name it – I was the outgoing s.o.b. that did it. But lately I’ve been keeping to myself. My regular waitress at a local restaurant mentioned it. Guys at the poker game I’ve been playing for 4-5 years. The leader of a local social group even commented on my “less-than-social” tendancies.

So something’s changed. My AGE for one thing. Could it have been the magic number “50?” Perhaps. There’s also the creeping awareness of Gell-Mann Amnesia, the Dunning-Krueger Effect, the observation often miss-attributed to Mark Twain that “it ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” And I no longer have to change/fix the world. It’ll get along JUST fine with the idiots running around on their own.

edit to add: Almost forgot to credit Annie Duke and her 2019 book Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts. I’ve used the premise a lot in conversations. I’ll sit quietly, listening (NOT my previous MO) and wait for them to make an obvious factual error or some erroneous sweeping generalization. Then I’ll ask “wanna bet?” As Ms. Duke posits, most people, when confronted with actually wagering actual money, will quickly retract their statements or, at the very least, begin some serious backpedaling. Quiet. Effective.