To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
Ecclesiastes 3:1

There was a time I had a lot of p&v.  I am nonetheless pleased to report that that time has passed. I am rather enjoying my current state of torpidity. Perhaps I am doing myself a disfavour to suggest I haven’t any longer any p&v, that I have lapsed into a state of disrepair. Indeed my instant reaction to the initial criticism is that, while I no longer pursue many things with the same fervour as I may formerly have done, I certainly haven’t abandoned my delight in and preference for many other things, things which I confess are shamefully removed from the stoic flavour of industry and enterprise. In short, I have transitioned from method to mode; that is, from procedure to pattern. It is the alteration of primacy from what is done to how it is done.

No doubt you have been asked, as have I, “Do you miss your work?” to which I unhesitatingly reply, “No!” When I look back upon my career, it was but work. Whatever gems adorned the practice of law were predominantly glitter only, from the robes to the formality. Otherwise it was merely about keeping your nose clean and to the grindstone. Calculating the refinement of legal detail which was frequently subject to prior review by one’s colleagues was an absorption not without its inexpressible challenges. Often I worked all day and into the early hours of the following day. When I initially opened my own practice, I held an office on Saturday mornings as had been the custom of my predecessor. The Saturday morning office was to accommodate farmers in particular. Often I met with clients either at my office or at their home after regular business hours. The occasion for holiday was sparsely observed, being restricted to those periods of lowest business volume such as Christmas and the New Year or the back-to-school period of early September. Perhaps it is that lingering hesitancy which I am now seeking to rebut.

In whatever manner one characterizes the switch to retirement from employment, the greater challenge after 30 – 50 years precedence is to reformulate a scheme of conduct which fulfills the new found objectives. I find it curious that, having retired March 1, 2014, it is only now that I am addressing the change. I am at least spirited in my restraint by recalling that I am slow to react to anything highly meaningful, like the death of my parents. It may speak to the division between experience and manifestation, the slow period of percolation of feeling from the depths.

But adjust we must. For me the imperative is not to fulfill the identical acts of production as before; rather, to achieve a satisfaction from what little I now do. Increasingly my physical expression of the inner diminution of my involvement is overtaking me. Getting about is harder by the day. I at least take a measure of comfort in now sporting a stick when walking!  I have that pitiable appearance which prompts younger people to hold the door.

There was a time I awoke at 7:00 am no matter when I went to bed.  There was a time when everything personal was conducted after five o’clock or on weekends.  There was a time I smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol. There was a time I weighed less than I do now. There was a time I looked younger. These matters, I am happy to say, do not disturb me. I have exhausted the appetite. Granted, I persist to live in a dream world such that I fashion my alteration is visible only to me. As my 92 year old mother observed upon landing at the retirement home, “There’s a lot of old people here!” One’s personal singularity is a hardened veneer!