Good Morning All,
Human beings are builders. Its what we do. We build houses, social structures, spiritual structures, and connections so that these structures come together and live. In this sense we are alive and enable life. When we break down the connections, the energy flow is broken and the parts begin to fail. We call this entropy.
So what happens when as individuals we retire from building?
Another way of understanding this is in terms of meaning building. We create meaning in our lives and meaning is so important that its absence can threaten our very existence. So when we stop creating meaning?
Retirement is death.
We human beings must evolve. We must throw away such notions as retirement. Instead, it would be more useful, and healthy, to think of it as exploring. At various stages of our lives we explore and build in various sets of areas: education, work, relationships, family, community, church, temple, or mosque.As we age, we move from one set of interests and areas to others, each time exploring, filling out, adding, deleting, and so on. My sense is that this process is eternal.
Some of us, though, seem to stop. We get tired. We no longer are interested in the world. And then we dry up and die and are scattered about the ground.And even in this are building.
It must be noted, that it is in fact only a seeming pause. This pause is another transition allowing us to become material for the next generation. It is only our hubris or fear that refuses to allow us to see this clearly.
Be well.
2 comments:
i can't imagine not working.. but i could imagine not working for someone else. retirement is an odd expression.. some people think of it literally. like sitting down and not getting up again. i think of it as freedom to get things done.
of course i can't afford to retire.. heh
Kind of like the ying and yang thing. Without night, you wouldn't appreciate the day. Without work, you don't appreciate the play.
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