Dave

My brother is the smartest guy I know. He'll be 48 on June 9th. God, I'm gonna have a 50 year old brother in two years!! Feeling older all of a sudden. Anyway, like I was saying, he's the smartest guy I know. He also lives like it's 1982.

No cell phone, no Internet. Doesn't care to get it, either. Ok, he has cable tv, but that's his lone concession to modernism. He reads the paper, front to back, every day. He drives a Jeep. Big 'ol Jeep. Living in Northern Wisconsin, that's the sensible choice. He's not interested in "going green", yet he's very meticulous and orderly.

Dave can talk about all sorts of things. He tends bar up in the Wisconsin Northwoods, so he feels it's best to be well rounded in knowledge so can can have intelligent conversations with his customers, whatever they may have interests in. He's perfectly happy tending bar. He's perfectly happy not having things that most of us would now be lost without.

Here's the thing: We have as many roads to information and knowledge as we ever have, yet as a nation we getting more and more stupid every year. Is there an inverse relationship between the amount of knowledge at your disposal and your ability to use it wisely? Is the old way still the best way? I guess it all depends how you use something at the end of the day. I get the Review Journal daily, but I may decide to watch "Transformers" instead. Honestly, I don't know if Dave has gone out to the movies in years. I could go to the Wall Street Journal website, but I may just visit TMZ and find out where Britney is today.

Through it all, I honestly think that Dave is as happy and satisfied as anyone I know. He doesn't need "more". He's lived in the same apartment for years. He has a nice little boat to go fishing. He's not making a ton of dough, but he's happy doing what he does, and my parents respect him for that. In learning lessons from our "it's never enough" society, Dave should be Exhibit A for the argument that the simple life is simply....better.