Lughnasa                                                        State Fair Moon

Suppose tomorrow someone came to you and said, “From now on you no longer have to use the education, skills and experience you’ve accumulated over your lifetime.  Good luck.”  They might have added, “And here’s a gold watch to keep track of time until, well, you don’t need to anymore.”

Our received understanding of retirement remains that of a life period where the things you worked and sacrificed to learn all of a sudden become so much baggage better left at the station.  It’s what our financial counselor Ruth Hayden calls the finish line model of retirement.  “Whew.”  We wipe our brows.  “Glad that’s over.  Martha, my slippers.”

It’s no longer like that.  Hasn’t been for a long time.  Some people, many people, will have to work a lot longer.  Others don’t, but still shuttle into the afteroffice with no idea of what comes next.  Perhaps when life expectancy after retirement was shorter, it was typically 18 months among working class retirees in my hometown of Alexandria, Indiana, the no plan might work.  Some television.  Some fishing.  Some cards.  A few beers.  That trip to Las Vegas.  Then, that trip to Happy Hill Cemetery.   Even then I suspect there were many long nights and longer weeks, weeks of wondering what on earth I’m doing still on earth, for heaven’s sake.

Now, with healthspan increasing and lifespan reaching 20-25 years post-retirement, it definitely won’t be enough.  This next phase, call it the Afteroffice or the third phase, has as many years as the other two phases, roughly, and certainly enough years that it needs to have a plan, a what I’m up to now contract with yourself and those around you family, friends, community.

After a first phase which emphasized preparation and a second phase which underlined practice, what is the third phase or the Afteroffice theme?  There could be many answers and there will certainly be a vast diversity of paths, but it seems likely that the dominant motif will be soul work.

Define soul however you want.  Which is just what I’ll try to do in my next post in this series.

Lughnasa                                                                          New (State Fair) Moon

Didn’t start my day outside yesterday and found myself feeling aimless after our meeting with Ruth.  Bounced around from this to that, never got traction until later in the day when I finished reading Rousseau’s On Inequality and watched the last two of the week’s lectures.

I don’t like feeling aimless.  It’s different from either relaxing or being focused, aimlessness occupies a nowhere land in terms of motivation, a sort of desert of intention where this happens, then that and then another thing.  It’s not the zen of the moment or being in the now, it’s not being in the now or the moment or anywhere else.  An uncomfortable feeling.

A large motivation for stopping the Sierra Club work and the MIA work was to allow a natural rhythm to surface and it has.  I work outside in the early morning, do some work on Missing until noon, nap, then take up Missing again.  When I tire of it, I work on the MOOC’s.  After that I either workout (MWF) or finish up and go upstairs to read or watch a movie or a some Netflix TV.

There are times though when that flow gets interrupted and I find it difficult to get back on track.  Yesterday was such a day.