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Nov 20, 2023Liked by Tom Pendergast

A few observations based on my retirement about a decade ago with the resulting loss of "society's meaning," and the subsequent search for more personally-authentic meaning. As you'll see, I look at things through the lens of science and geology (deep time).

Biologically speaking, we are here to get our genes to the next generation, period. That is the meaning of life. We are also animals with a nature, human nature. We are uniquely a "eusocial" creature, meaning we are extremely social. There are only a handful of species that have this as a particular aspect to their nature. We are always looking for where we fit in the social hierarchy, especially because it directly relates to breeding rights. Castes and tribalism fit into this narrative -- Alpha males and all that. Will Storr recently wrote a nice book on this -- The Status Game. I say all the above because I don't think you should dismiss your actions as simple "egoism" in some negative way. It is intrinsic to who and what we are. I think status, along with the drive for procreation (which, as I noted, is related to status) explains 80% of human nature and actions. In any case, in times of yore, a man of your status would have been asked to sit with the elders to decide tribal issues. In other words, you would have still been valued and would have provided intrinsic meaning to both the group and yourself. No more. So here you are. What do you do now?

Supporting your genetic lineage is clearly of biological value. It's been shown that families with active grandmothers have much better child survival rates. I think men could play a similar role, but this behavior may be less of a driver for the male of the species than the female. Certainly it depends on the individual. Most men, I would say, seek more of an elders circle / hero role as that role more directly displays status. Watch out, though, as some individuals go down the wrong path when pursuing this end. I say that because I think Trumpettes like Giuliani did what they did largely to regain status.

So what do you do if you have no children or this is not the path you feel drawn to? The Hindus might say that you are at the stage where you have fulfilled your family and societal obligations (the earlier stages of a normal life as they see it) and now you start a "spiritual" pilgrimage. This could be simply giving back to the community, akin to what you are doing, or maybe more of an inward journey. I think there is a lot to this thought.

My search has shown to me that society is, on one hand, profoundly misguided and approaching multiple catastrophes ( just read the headlines), but also that this trajectory is OK. This is all playing out as is to be expected. We are not a "bad" species -- we are just acting out our base nature. Few exert any degree of free will to depart from this base nature. But if you are to do that, this stage of life is the easiest time to do it (though still not easy.) You can now see the role you were playing before, or, maybe better said, how what you were doing before was simply role playing using somebody elses script. Now you have the possibility to exert free will and mindfully choose your direction and end goal. Note that although many people believe we have no free will, I don't agree with that. I think we have the ability develop good character and apply self control at critical moments, which amounts to a form of free will.

It seems to me you are doing a bit of that now by taking on roles in the local community that directly touch people lives in basic ways. How much more basic can you get than providing bread to people? Ever see Short Cuts?

So now you have freedom to express yourself in your own way. Its like having to learn to ride a bike (define and choose your own path) after many years of using training wheels (being guided by society's expectations.)

Anyways, when I read what you wrote that is what I thought about.

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What a great comment! I’ll have to let this sink reply with more. Thanks for your comment.

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Dan really interesting take on this post/topic thanks writing this down. I wrote below up in October when I hit 2yrs after leaving my corp career; now heading into year three I'm thinking about how this takes a less fluffy shape

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Time becomes fluffy in retirement. Without constraints, your days puff up 10X like kernels of popcorn. Scoop a big bowl and snack all day. It's really wonderful and not intuitive at all because when I was grinding at work, seemingly constantly at it - I always felt rushed and never had enough time.

Yet the premise of retirement is odd. Society defines paths for you to follow through college into and during your career progression as well as family. But once you travel these paths to your liking you enter an amorphous clearing. Retirement has a ring like it’s the end of the biggest thing and of course your life doesn’t culminate with the end of your professional career.

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