Tuesday, February 19, 2008

New and Better Fantasies a Lot Like Old Ones

The basic premise of my life before, and especially since, retirement has been that if I could not find a way to have a meaningful life or a meaningful relationship, that the thing to do is to travel. Absolutely everybody, when asked what they would do when they retire, says that they will travel. When asked what else they would do, there is some hemming and hawing, and then a reference to travel again.

(Absolutely no one at all ever mentions watching television as something they plan to do in retirement though it is perfectly foreseeable that they will and they know it. My plan to protect myself from watching too much television by cheaping out and get only basic cable has worked. There truly is not much on basic cable. There doesn't seem to be anything any better on the blocked channels either. Baruch Hashem!)

So, being of a perennially literal turn of mind, I have been traveling and then hemming and hawing, then traveling some more. This year is no different. I am going to Death Valley for the wildflowers in March, April in Paris, May visiting my father's hometown of Jelgava in Latvia, then leaving in the Pachyderm for BC and Alaska. I leave in July for an eclipse in China. After the eclipse I mean to take a side trip to Tibet on the famous pressurized train.

I am not sure what the point of all this running around might be except that I have nothing better to do, everybody (by which I mean women) admires me for doing it, and I have talked myself into doing it. I enjoy it too.

But is it really a life?

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:05 AM

    But is it really a life? Only until you die. Traveling is the way older folks who no longer go or want to go to school can continue their education. After the basics of life (food, shelter, nookie) are taken care of, the only thing worth spending money on is education and travel.

    As for television, even the Basic package is too much. Get NetFlicks, that way you only watch what you want to watch. Or get rid of the one-eyed monster all together. It will shock your friends. ("Oh my G-d, you don't watch American Idol???") People fool themselves into thinking some TV is better than the stupid shows "other" people watch, but there is no difference between the guy who takes pride in knowing all the answers on Jeopardy and the guy who guesses all the prices on The Price is Right.

    I see your blog site has "improved" so I can't leave this post in a stupid, yet sometimes mildly pithy, name.

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  2. Anonymous5:09 PM

    Traveling alone, being alone. Brings to mind "Does a tree which falls in the forrest...."

    Some say yes, some say no. This Anonymous sides with the "No."

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  3. So, according to anonymous if I bicycle through the forest and no one sees me, I wasn't there? I don't even exist until anonymous sees me?

    ReplyDelete