calmloki
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Kinda looks like Bongo walked on the crowded beach wearing caulked boots and found some sensitivities. I know i will wrestle with sense of purpose after retiring. Looks like a revisit to the old "why am i here" question. You know: is man's purpose to procreate and die? To attempt to discover God? To aid his fellow travelers? To make as much money as possible? To have the finest tan, surf the perfect wave, hit the perfect golf shot, play the perfect piano piece?...
Retirement looks to me like a point at which it is natural to say "is that all there is? Am i accepting that i'm no longer a vital young buck willing to test my antlers against all comers?" Was my work of any value, did i have any purpose? If so isn't it hard to walk away from that (mmm, Rich?)? If my work was of no value have i wasted half my life - and was it the best half?
Retirement is scary: the background noise of earning a living is largely gone, children are mostly adults (except for some of you E types like CFB). I applaud those of you who have said "enough - this is the work i offer and the reward i accept. I shall go and work no more forever." I know that i have trouble balancing my idle nature against my sense of self worth - suspect that that is not foreign to all of us.
When i was a young teen a favorite Aunt ran across some self-indulgent things i had written and returned them to me with a George Santanaya quote that has stayed with me:
That life is worth living is the most necessary of assumptions and, were it not assumed, the most impossible of conclusions.
I offer that up to Bongo and suggest that starting there might change his perspective.
Retirement looks to me like a point at which it is natural to say "is that all there is? Am i accepting that i'm no longer a vital young buck willing to test my antlers against all comers?" Was my work of any value, did i have any purpose? If so isn't it hard to walk away from that (mmm, Rich?)? If my work was of no value have i wasted half my life - and was it the best half?
Retirement is scary: the background noise of earning a living is largely gone, children are mostly adults (except for some of you E types like CFB). I applaud those of you who have said "enough - this is the work i offer and the reward i accept. I shall go and work no more forever." I know that i have trouble balancing my idle nature against my sense of self worth - suspect that that is not foreign to all of us.
When i was a young teen a favorite Aunt ran across some self-indulgent things i had written and returned them to me with a George Santanaya quote that has stayed with me:
That life is worth living is the most necessary of assumptions and, were it not assumed, the most impossible of conclusions.
I offer that up to Bongo and suggest that starting there might change his perspective.