Grampa Simpson Clint “Steely Gaze of Intellectual Incuriosity” Eastwood says the unexamined life was damn well good enough for the old-timers, so it oughta be good enough for you wisenheimers, and stay outta my yard, you goddamn kids…
Tough guy Clint Eastwood believes America is getting soft around the middle – and the iconic Oscar winner thinks he knows when the problem began.
“Maybe when people started asking about the meaning of life,” Eastwood, 78, growls in the January issue of Esquire.
The actor/director recalls the deeper questions were rarely posed during his Depression-era California childhood – and says that wasn’t a bad thing.
“People barely got by,” Eastwood recounts. “People were tougher then.”
Yeah, living hand-to-mouth and never knowing whether you were going to have food, let alone a job next week will do that to you. Still, I imagine living one of John Calvin’s wet dreams is one of those things that looks a little more bracing, invigorating, and character-building in hindsight; in real time, not so much. As Aristotle himself said* in Nicomachean Ethics, “Fuck you, you cranky old coot.”
*not really.