Just thinking about retirement is somewhat unreal to me. I've been working almost nonstop since college graduation (Duke '71), but not necessarily liking it. However, the more pertinent reason for starting this blog now is that I am considering baking Christmas cookies as my time filler, justifier of the day. Having viewed a few of the 'cookie' blogs and columns, including those most elegant (Martha Stewart) and those of the homespun variety, I'm wondering if other 'verging on retirement' people sit and think about inconsequential matters such as this. To bake or not to bake?
Retirement & the "End Time" (with credit to EBE)
It's like figuring out if the ends have been justified by the means. Or, maybe, finishing a really good book that you don't want to finish. But you have to. Right? All those darkening images of a narrowing path, an emptying glass, a weathering, a softening, a crepuscular sense of waningness (a new word a la Colbert?) - all of it occupies that portion of my thoughts that is barely veiled by the daily, realistic, practical concerns.
Back to baking, which is what I really sort of want to do. I have several recipes that look good and for which I have most of the ingredients. My basic, almond flavored, unsalted buttered, sugar cookies are the most popular, but I yearn for something that will just blow everyone's taste buds and garner their respect for my creativity. Really, baking?
I am wondering if anyone else is out there, looking towards crossing the rubicon of older age and questioning their actions in terms of significence and consequence. The idea is to be just oh so intelligent and capable that you are either too corporately busy to even have these thoughts or too intellectually erudite to be thinking of anything other than your current manuscript, research project or technological presentation. Or, perhaps you are simply too positive and practical to become bogged down in such egoistical daymares (as opposed to nightmares which are beyond my control).
The key, as any budding clinical depressive will tell you is, just keep busy, man! Your time is valuable, so just fill it up. At the end of the day, you'll be rewarded by looking at whatever admirable time filler you have accomplished -- seeing a new film, play, concert, art show? Reading the latest book on North Korea? Writing a meaningful bit of verbiage in your journal?
So, I will bake. With tangible results to prove to myself that I have done something valuable with my time -- that will benefit others (cookie eaters), that I will enjoy (batter and cookie eater), that won't harm the environment or others and that is simple, easy and cheap.
Did I mention that I am not retired? That I must continue to work. We, of the unretirable (? or perhaps unable to retire), babyboomer generation, don't even really have the luxury of this type of rambling thought processing. And yet...I do believe, (I do believe, I do believe) that I have compatriots, empathetic readers, fellow egoists who are daily plagued with the having to work, knowing the end is coming, worrying (still) about the meaning of life and pretty much realizing that we're not going to figure out, but must come to a point where we can let it go and live before we die.
Elizabeth Edwards died this week. An example to follow.
