Sometimes, the old lizard brain I have running operations on my mainframe accidentally spits out some real truth. Happened the other day, watching my son at a swim meet. He’s — sorry kiddo — not the best swimmer on the squad. Not second-best either. Third-best? Oh no. Not him. We can continue to count numbers, but that’s not the point. The point is I was there, watching him and his team, and he was having a great time. Laughing and joking and hanging out, interspersed with a few laps here and there. He’s been swimming competitively on and off for the last 10 years or so, and for the most part, the only joy I ever got out of it was when he was winning races. (He used to swim a lot more when he was younger. He’s been “off” more than “on” the last five years. Doesn’t matter. Anyway …) Anyway, as a parent, swimming isn’t like football or basketball or lacrosse. You’re not engaged in the action the entire time. You get engaged when your kid swims. Which takes up about, oh, no more than five minutes over the course of a few hours. So yeah. People bring books. And earbuds. I’ve been tempted to bring a BarcaLounger and a bottle of bourbon. But a few weeks back, I was sitting there at the pool, building NBA DFS lineups, scrolling through TikTok, doing a whole lot of nothing when I peeked up and saw him yukking it up with some teammates. So I kept watching. More yuks. And that’s when my lizard brain coughed  and sputtered to life. Listen: I consider myself a relatively intellectually gifted fella. I’m a smart guy, quick-witted, blah blah blah.I’m also a bit of an emotional idiot. I can be … how would my wife describe it … something close to an “idiot.” Yeah. Idiot sounds about right. I have the emotional worldview of a six-year-old. I don’t see the forest for the trees. I have a hard time living in the moment. I’m highly anxietal. The list goes on. But sometimes — sometimes — the sun peeks through the clouds and a moment of clarity descends on me out of nowhere. And that’s what happened watching my son. I had fun watching him have fun. Simple as that. Him enjoying himself with his teammates does absolutely nothing for me in a very real sense. Doesn’t put food on the table, doesn’t put money in my pocket. And it’s not like he’s a toddler or a little kid, where when they discover things it sparks joy in us parents. Nope. This was a teenager, on the fast track to adulthood, being as free and easy as he could be, having the time of his life. To repeat: I had fun watching him have fun. Wasn’t jealous — though I would give anywhere between three and seven fingers to be 15 again — and I wasn’t feeling my own age, or noting the fact that those “free and easy” times don’t come so often when you’ve got jobs and mortgages and insurance and and and and… But right then, right there, for that moment, I was about as happy as I’ve ever been, simply by watching my kid be happy. If I could bottle this up and put it in pill form, I’d happily be an addict. Oh, and that sound you hear is my wife calling me an idiot right now, noting that if I felt this kind of joy and euphoria all the time, I would be miserable, as there would be no baseline for what joy actually is, how there has to be rain to properly enjoy the sun. She’s right, of course, but still — I’d snort it. Lizard brain, remember?