The Art Life

We live in the retirement capitol of the world. In fact, the median (median!) age in Naples, Florida is 66. For those of you who skipped that day in stats class, that means that more than half of the people that live here are over retirement age.

I have to be honest, though: the thought of retirement fills me with dread.

Neither Lisa or I resonate with the idea of working full steam up to a certain point and then stopping cold turkey and immersing ourselves in those things we enjoy but never had the chance to do while we were working.

First off, the things we enjoy aren’t the usual. I mean, bocci ball, golf, and tennis are nice. But honestly we prefer reading, learning, art, music, lively discussion, long walks, travel, and coffee.

Secondly, our work isn’t only something that we do to provide for ourselves. It isn’t something that we’re going to drop like a hot potato the moment we’ve saved enough to dispense with it. To us, our work is sacred. It’s something that we love, and it’s work that is rewarding in itself.

We may not always have as much energy to carry on with that work as we do today, so we thought that a gradual transition might be in order—one that allows us to move into our later years with a little more grace. Every consecutive year might mean a little less time at the office, and a little more time reading, painting, taking classes, making music, all of those things.

After thinking all of this through, we thought, why wait? Why not start now? Why hold off? We don’t know how much time we have left.

And so we have. Lisa started making more time for herself to work on her graduate degree, and then possibly her doctorate. In a few more years I’ll have to call her Dr. Kahn-Allen.

I’ve been more conscious of making time for my music, for the Finding Sanctuary Zettelkasten, and the other creative projects I want to complete.

This is Phase 1 of the Art Life, and it’s going fine. Care to join us?

Warm regards on this delightful December Saturday,

Philip