Sunday, September 5, 2021

Think carefully

 You get up in the morning.

You have your coffee, tea, breakfast, whatever it is you do.

You go to work for someone else and they pay you OR

You go to work for yourself doing stuff around the house or shop.

Somewhere between 3:30 and 5:00 you wrap it up, go home (or back inside) and have a glass of wine and/or an appetizer while you think about what to have for dinner.

You cook dinner, watch some TV or read a book, go to bed.

Get up and do it again.

Thirty four years this has been what I have been doing.

Assuming I live to ninety (my family is generally long lived and I am very healthy) I have another thirty four years to go.

Good grief. I'm already bored!  Get a hobby you say.  I ride motorcycles (getting tiresome to go long distance), I fix motorcycles (fixed more motorcycles than I care to count and am running out of enthusiasm for more), I read (thousands of books.  They are starting to run together), I watch movies (see books), I tinker with clocks and sewing machines (fixing stuff is fixing stuff.  Eventually it is all the same but then you end up with multiple motorcycles, clocks everywhere, sewing machines littering the property even though I have sewn something exactly once in the past twenty years).  I play RPGs (have to find other people and fit it to their schedules).  I'm involved in veteran's organizations (the phrase herding cats comes to mind) and local freedom associations (which means listening to nutty conspiracy theories some fraction of the time).  I'm running for political office because I want to be left alone (oh god, please leave me alone so I don't have to run for office).

Thirty four more years.  Seriously?  That is a long time.  And it isn't getting easier.  I need a more comfortable bed to sleep properly.  I used to sleep wrapped up in a tarp and a wool poncho on the ground next to my Harley and, by the way, I slept great.  I am sore for about the first hour of every day and then about 5 pm things start to ache.  I go to bed at nine and sometimes I think about going to bed at six, but I know I will wake up in the middle of the night and then the next day will suck.  If I go to bed at 11 I wake up at 6, a whole extra hour, which is still an hour less than I need.  Can't sleep longer so don't suggest it.  What on earth am I going to do for the next thirty four years?  Honestly, I have no idea, I'm  not that interested, and it doesn't sound that fun.  

Maybe this whole longevity thing isn't all it's cracked up to be.

3 comments:

John Wilder said...

Regardless, it's still better than the alternative . . .

Bullis in Montana said...

I was raised to be stoic. If you break a leg, walk it off. Work hard and be serious.
There is little joy in such a philosophy. [I even doubt the 'philo' part of that word.] It is a great way to build a civilization, but it is also a prescription for anhedonia. I am looking more at the Thoughts of Epicurus. It bears as little resemblance to our society's definition of Epicurianism as Cynicism does to the thoughts of Diogenes and Thoreau.
Meet with friends. Develop the art of conversation. Flirt. Take joy in Feynman's active rejection of responsibility. That may be how to live in a society of plenty.
DAB

Anonymous said...

Get a girlfriend. She will find something for you to do.

--generic