As I wrote this, intended to be funny, with only a touch of seriousness, post, I felt increasingly childish/silly/spoiled/clueless. Almost deleted it, in embarrassment. But, since my posts serve as part of my journaling obsession—the part other people get to read if they’re short of more exciting or challenging literary resources at the moment, I decided to post it.

Yesterday, for the first time since I retired (2 ½ months ago), I felt at loose, very loose, ends. For a few afternoon hours, I did not know what to do with myself. Yeah, I know, not a big deal in the course of human events…to me, Big Deal.

It’s not that I’m hugely ambitious (as many of you know), it’s just that I always have a little or a lot more to do than I have time in which to do it: reading, writing, life-keeping (you know, the bill-paying and picture, recipe, letter, document sorting, that oldish people do), house stuff, friend and family stuff, thinking, not-thinking while streaming cop/murder shows.

And it’s not that I’ve completed all those to-dos and was left with nothing to do, it’s just that, all of a sudden, unused time just stretched before me into a sort of void. I dislike New Mexico afternoons anyway—all that bloody sun—but this felt ridiculous. Since none of my normal activities appealed, what about a nice long nap (won’t work, slept well last night), how about I drink four wines (nope, alcohol over a thumbful makes me sick), how about a walk on this sunny afternoon in the nineties (dead as a doornail on the sidewalk in half an hour).

So. Okay. Here’s where I realized how absolutely pampered this all sounded.

 After an hour or so of pacing around the circular layout of my home, I finished an excellent book with only a few pages to go (This Strange Eventful History), I ate a dish of a new exotic ice cream found on the shelves at my handy little neighborhood store for the well-off [who am I kidding?]: Maple Cardamom Candied Pecan. I pondered my meaningless unemployed old age. I made it through the afternoon.

I could have been Jeff Bezos girlfriend and not sounded any more privileged.

It’s the word ‘meaningless’ that matters in this post.

I’ve recently started reading or rereading the books in the opening photo. Yalom’s book is a favorite from college, and “At the Existentialist Café” is newly purchased but already of great interest and value—having to read everything twice so far to understand the earliest of those seriously difficult-to-understand creators of what seemed then a mostly new branch of philosophy. I’m imagining reading the whole thing more than once or twice before I’m fluent in “existentialist” speak.

I’ve long called myself an existentialist which means, as far as I’ve thought, that the meaning/quality/purpose of my existence is up to me. So, no long hours to waste without knowing it’s my fault they’re wasted.

Anyway, since my posts are really me-keeping-track-of-me, I’m going to go ahead and post this. And read much more and reflect on just how I make these last 2 or 7 or 15 years of my life matter to somebody or something beyond whether I get bored in the afternoon!

Not sure if the following quote is pertinent to this post but seems like a good one overall.

“I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions.”
~ Albert Camus, 1955, The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays