Changes in attitude

 James William Buffett is gone at 76. At 66 I "don't do the things I used to do" either, and I too "still have a very happy life"...

He made so many people happy. We won't hear as much about the ones made miserable by an addictive, dissolute lifestyle romanticized by a talented son of a son of the beach.

But I still acknowledge and affirm the "moral holiday"* dimension of his life and work, as I did in Open Court's volume exploring the Parrotthead "lifestyle" and mindset. We do "have a right ever and anon to take a moral holiday, to let the world wag in its own way" (Pragmatism), I'd just like to achieve it non-self-destructively. I'd like to exceed 76 and enjoy good health, clarity, energy, happiness, and freedom doing it.

"…By the time he wrote "Tales from Margaritaville" (1989), the first of his three No. 1 best sellers, he had abandoned the hedonistic lifestyle he had previously embraced.

'I could wind up like a lot of my friends did, burned out or dead, or redirect the energy," he told The Washington Post in 1989. "I'm not old, but I'm getting older. That period of my life is over. It was fun — all that hard drinking, hard drugging. No apologies.'
'I still have a very happy life,' he went on. 'I just don't do the things I used to do.'" nyt

So like him, I don't do the things I used to do either. Not piracy, drug-running, and Margaritas (much), in my case, but bourbon and beer. They held their charms. The possibility of a longer future, preferably longer than just another decade, now holds more.

Smooth sailing, JWB. Our Margaritaville flag out by the pool will fly at half-staff for you. You're really "licensed to chill" now.

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