Three lines from T. S. Eliot’s poem “Chorus from ‘The Rock’” sum up my fears about myself and my generation:
And the wind shall say: “Here were decent godless people:
Their only monument the asphalt road
And a thousand lost golf balls.”
The first of seventy-seven million (that’s 77,000,000!) of
us—the baby-boomers—have begun to retire. That’s about 10,000 every day and
maybe more than that as the economic downturn turns long-term job searchers
into reluctant retirees.
The wealth of experience, wisdom, and energy this represents
is beyond calculating. And it would be a tragedy to squander it in a retirement
orgy of decent and respectable godlessness, road trips, and lost golf balls.
Or at least I want more than that out of whatever years I have
left (I turn 59 in February).
Thus a blog considering thoughts and ideas many of which are
still in nascent form about living a good life by which I mean a fruitful and
full life after mid-life.
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