Thoughts of being 50

Yep, i am half a century young now and at this age some people take a look back at their life and strike a balance only to get a grim reminder that they spent many years in a dull job, are divorced, have two Facebook junkies as kids and are sitting on a load of debts for house and car. I recently made my income tax declaration and was done after 10 minutes, because i could leave most of the spaces blank telling me my life is how it shall be - simple without worries and complications. Across the years i lived through different epochs and none of them feel as historically insignificant as the current one. In twenty years from now, what will be remembered ? Maybe the EU debt crisis, the intelligence service knowing you better than your wife does ( Still somebody believes Zuckerberg is the mastermind behind bloody Facebook ? ) or lethal plastic guns thanks to 3-D printers - Goodness gracious me !? Being in my twenties nowadays i perhaps could handle a smartphone with great virtuosity, but would be without orientation trying to get a well paid job in a rotten business culture. Being in my thirties i perhaps would be a paranoid sushi and latte macchiato consumer and had no idea who Mississippi John Hurt was. But as a fifty year old i am a witness of the late 60's, 70's and early 80's, times when things as music, cars, nightlife or fashion had a certain kind of magic, something that is completely gone in todays illusory world. I like my first car ( a Mercedes-Benz 200 D/8 ...mmmh) a lot better than cars built by now, in my favourite night club i met people as Prince or Metallica and danced to music from James Brown - nowadays a pale faced techno dj hammers monotonous rhythms in the ears from intoxicated juveniles, who are supposed to be our future. Charisma seems to be extinct. The German football national team looks like a  bunch of 6. graders on a class field trip crying more after a lost game than girls in a casting show and when i see the German minister of economic affairs Philip Rösler i spontaneously want to give him some sweets. Action movies starred Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson - nowadays heartthrob Brad Pitt. Women were classy, silicone free and without tattoos, intimate shaving, screeching voices and artificial tan and hair color - nowadays ... don't get me started ! So the bottom line is, that being fifty is completely alright and i am looking ahead to the next half century with a healthy life-work balance.