I fear my productive, engaged life is on the wane. I have been truly struggling in my day job like never before. It is not entirely my fault, much of it is a change in organizational culture that is either intolerable or that I can't seem to adapt to. Whatever the case it's dragging me down to the point where I am doing retirement calculations in my head whereas I was previously just daydreaming (admittedly with increasing frequency). If it gets to the point where I am doing them on paper, then we'll know it's over.
Some of my struggle is also the realization that I will never recapture the carefree and -- dare I say -- adventurous life I lived from roughly age 35 to age 50. It is possible that such a life is not appropriate or even possible for a man of my age (although I think it is possible and who cares what is appropriate) and that I should embrace my new parameters. That's fair. And perhaps I should be grateful that while my life has increasingly become more constricting it has, on the whole, become more meaningful.
It is interesting to divide my adult life into 15 year sections. 20-35 was young adulthood; a lot of lost years, struggling to find my independence, coming to terms with the realities of the world and the awakening of understanding my limitations and how my self-image was delusion. 35- 50 were the Salad Days. Maybe 50-65(ish) are the mature phase, where I've found responsibility and dependability are the tools of meaning and that relationships (of all sorts) are the measure of meaning. What will 65(ish)-80(ish) hold? Acceptance and peace? Disappointment and confusion? Satisfaction? Regret? I suppose it is inevitable that I will find out.
I need to start writing again. I was going to put it off until I retired, but that was wrong-headed. New goal: Kick off one, possibly two, new book projects.
[Movies] Flick Check: Bad Action
[Books] Book Look: The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll