Bob's Epilogue

From October 1956 to when I retired in March 2004, I worked in the defense industries of one Western nation or another as an engineer. It was a wonderful career. I was well paid to work with the brightest minds around, on the most interesting and challenging projects, employing the very latest technology, and had the personal satisfaction of knowing I was helping to defend the free world.

This most enjoyable employment was fueled solely by the Cold War between the United States and the USSR. From a Defense Industry point of view, there were only two fundamental rules governing the Cold War: (a) Don’t launch, and (b) Don’t quit.

Damn Commies, you never could trust them. In 1991 they gave up, leaving me and several hundred thousand other Cold War warriors scrambling for employment.

So from the forested-mountain home where my anchor is down, I raise my bottle of beer and say: "So long USSR, and thanks for all the threats."

In this blog, I intend to share the thoughts and memories resident in my 77-year old mind. However, I caution you that you will find little wisdom on this site. At best, you may find some humor and a small measure of insight into life and the nature of humans.

What I'm Learning About Retirement

I suppose like many, my concept of retirement was simply that I no longer had to go to work, and could spend my time as I wished. Turns out, my concept was simplistic. Retirement is changing me in ways I had not anticipated.

Two years after I retired, I find that, the essence of my retirement has been arrested growth, disengagement, stabilization of my position in the world, and erosion of essential professional (i.e., career-critical) skills.

During my entire life prior to retirement, I was intellectually and emotionally engaged with all aspects of the world in which I found myself. My personal welfare, my family, my friends, my career, the politics of my nation, city, and neighborhood were all of vital concern to me. I was informed and had opinions on the myriad of issues that arose. From the mundane, such as picking a pre-school for our daughters to the sublime: how to engineer a series of major design changes to the F/A-22 fighter without delaying the delivery of aircraft, were of vital concern to me.

Without the slightest hesitation, I accepted the responsibility for the successes and failures of my decisions. In the process, I learned, I changed, and I grew intellectually and emotionally. My entire life since birth was one of continuous growth. What I was yesterday, is not what I am today. For decades, I awoke each morning with the thought that today was a new opportunity for me to become a perfect human

Up to the moment of my retirement.

For me, retirement is a process of letting go. For the very first time in my entire life, in retirement, I am no longer driven to affect the outcome of the important issues in my life, including the emontional growth that allowed me to rise to the critical occasions as they came. Thus, retirement is fundamentally letting go of striving. Especially, forsaking striving to change myself. Finally, I’m done. Finished with becoming. For good or for ill, I am what I am. And, fortunately, I am content with who I am.

As a youth, the need to be accepted and liked, was a powerful engine for self change. As an adult, the need to earn money by means of a career, was the fundamental impetus for growth and improvement of myself and my marketable skills. One unintentional consequence of the abandonment of my career by retirement was the removal of a prime impetus for personal change.

When retirement removed striving from my life, tranquility moved in. My world became not only quiescent but also stable. My 39-year marriage is rock sold. My daughters are both married and doing a good job of raising our grandchildren. The work of my 48-year career is completed. Our income is sufficient to maintain us.

I have, however, discovered a down side to my retirement. With the disengagement from career, earning, and striving, came also disengagement from current political, social, and cultural affairs. I read the New York Times and the LA Times, every morning, but with the interest of a bystander. The news no longer concerns me personally. I find I now react to the daily news reports the same way I reacted to news in the London Times when I was living and working in England. Interesting, but no real concern of mine. Only occasionally, do I react to what I know to be gross misrepresentation of the facts.

Finally, my fine tuned engineering skills upon which I depended for so long are rusting away. Which is OK for I have put down the mental tools that served me so well and faithfully.