More Rambling Than Needed

Seems like I'm an old man stuck in a rut, who doesn't have a cell phone or any of the typical diversions of retirement. I don't play golf, have season tickets for a sports team, or volunteer my services because I have too much time on my hands. In fact, I'm probably more intellectually engaged at this point in my life than ever before. At the same time, I'm not physically fit; I don't go to the gym, take walks, lift weights, and I don't go to the pond or walk up and down the river to fish. I don't have a boat, a four-wheeler, or a snowmobile. Not only that, I don't want them either.


What I do have that I enjoy is a nice computer and a larger-sized Amazon Kindle. I have a guillotine paper cutter that allows me to cut the backs off of books and I have a nice high-speed scanner that allows me to feed the sheets of the books through it and convert the text in them to electronic form. There's something empowering about being able to carry a library with you or to know that the books that you have acquired over your lifetime can be held on a computer or on a couple of DVDs.

I don't have other vices common to people: I don't drink alcohol, smoke, do drugs, engage in illicit sex, or feel the need to tan myself in tanning salons or to tattoo or pierce myself to improve my look, but I'm not saying I am good looking, not at all. Maybe I should get some tattoos and a few piercings and it would improve things. Just kidding.

As I've said, I'm probably more engaged --- at least within my mind --- in philosophy, in reading, and writing, and other venues such as politics and religion than ever before. I am more questioning and less settled that I was in my youth. While I feel self-assured, I do not feel certain about most things. For me, faith is more meaningful than certainty. Part of all that results from having experienced marriage all this time with my one faithful and true wife, and raising four wonderful, challenging, beautiful, exasperating children.