Slice of Life, #10

            It’s taken me most of my life to realize that almost nothing is all good (well, maybe orgasms) or all bad (okay, slavery, genocide, serial killers). Most everything else has something both good and bad about it.

            Take retirement. While too many are forced into it by a layoff, or a mandatory retirement age, or illness or disability, retirement is usually seen as freely choosing not to work full-time, and that’s what I decided to do two years ago. Since then I have noted the pros and the cons.

            I am not a morning person. It can take up to an hour for my brain to clear and I can have a reasonably coherent conversation and feel like I am truly awake. So retirement was freedom from the tyranny of the alarm, the need to have breakfast, run out of the door, and get to the office on time to get my work done. Taken to its extreme, though, freedom can feel oppressive.
            I’ve taken to setting my alarm so I won’t sleep away too much of the morning. Take today:

• --radio goes on at 8:30
• --not really awake until almost 9
• --out of bed shortlt after 9
• --reading about Joseph Roth in a magazine in the bathroom until 9:45
• --stretch on bed (for spinal stenosis) while continuing to read about Roth until 9:58
• --start to read about Syria in the same magazine, return magazine to bathroom, remove J.’s bench from the bathtub, fold up clothes from drier and put them away, finished by 10:15
• --make bed, shower, dress by 10:35
• --eat breakfast, read the paper, to 11:35

            I'm not ready to "do" anything until almost noon. I don’t feel happy about this. Yes, I can lie in bed and doze on and off while listening to Morning Edition. Yes, I can read as much of the New York Times as I want to. Yes, I can read a magazine article that strikes my fancy, when it strikes my fancy. But there’s so much more I want to do (writing, reading, going to movies and museums, etc.) and need to do (errands, exercise, filing insurance claims, etc.). Even in retirement, there’s never enough time.

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            Is this a privileged whine? I know I am fortunate compared to many, especially those forced to retire and unable to find work they want and need. Maybe this “whine” will kick me into using my literally free time more productively.

The Perils of Being a Dilettante

I'm very undisciplined and easily distracted. Unless I have deadlines from others (like going to an office, having specific work to do), it's too easy use up my time doing things I like doing, but that aren't essential to what I want to do. I could easily spend two hours reading the New York Times (in print) and then another hour or more playing Luxor Maj-jongg or Bejeweled, and another hour or more reading Facebook and clicking on the links friends have posted, and another hour or more reading all my e-mail and the various links other friends have posted -- and there you have it: almost seven hours just reading stuff that's interesting (many things are interesting to me) but not focused.

So I have to learn to set priorities, my own priorities. If I'm semi-retiring to write, writing has to be the first thing I do. If it's not supporting my writing, the reading has to wait. Writing, the writing group, reading books on writing, talking about writing: those are priorities. Reading for fun counts, but not online. Reading online is an open-ended temptation, links to links to links. Print books keep you in the book.