Another Man's Junk Is Sometimes Just Junk

My father was and still is a pack-rat.  There was crap everywhere in the house when I was growing up: Scientific Americans from before I was born, textbooks long out of print that hadn't been opened since the 1950s, clothing that stopped fitting him decades ago.  

As a reaction I became his exact opposite, a bit of a neat-freak.  I was Kondo long before there was a Kondo, throwing away anything that was not immediately useful, never storing anything beyond its apparent utility.  When I was in my 20s I was proud that every material possession I owned could fit in my small one-bedroom apartment, which included my car since it could fit in the living room if I could get it in there.  I would still be at that level today if it weren't for the wife.

Of course one big difference is the Old Man has living memories of the Depression, so poor that he and his five siblings went barefoot during the summers in rural Tennessee.  I, on the other hand, grew up in a mass consumer society in a large city, with goods getting ever more abundant and cheaper, so if I ever did need anything it was a short drive away when I was younger, and starting about 15 years ago, a click away.  So the concept of "storing $*#t you might need" has different meanings for him and me.

Now that the Old Man is into his late 80s, he is actually starting to de-clutter a bit before someone does it for him after he is gone, with the expectation that the kids would take most of his stuff.  I don't want any of his stuff, but I have to make a showing of interest, because family.

One item that I am expected to take is the Britannica Great Books series, which happened to have been captured behind Yours Truly when I was a wee lad.  For anyone not familiar, this 54 book set is the foundational texts of Western Thought, and someone who is considered well-educated should at minimum have a passing familiarity with the authors, texts and concepts in the series, everything from Plato to Shakespeare to Freud.

Conceptually I appreciate the goal of the series, but from a practical standpoint I have read almost everything I want through other mediums (I read several in high school, many in college and a few out of intellectual curiosity as an adult), and am familiar with the works I haven't read because I do have a broad education. 

But despite what I wrote in 2011 when I already knew I would be inheriting these, I am not going to sit down and read anything in this series in this medium (I would read it digitally, or a version with in-line notes, which I did for Paradise Lost, and no one can read Kant without).  Nor do I have any interest of showing them off on a bookshelf.  As I wrote 13 years ago, I largely got rid of my own physical library as I don't want to store or move books (see comment above about immediate utility).  

But I will be picking them up this week.  Maybe I'll take an updated picture with them.

Retirement is Hours and Hours of Hours and Hours

After 35 years in tech I have accumulated enough wealth to retire tomorrow, not change my lifestyle, and outlive my money.  The problem is I would be massively bored.  Hell, I get bored on long weekends.  

Now I am still a "Window Manager" and don't work too hard, so its not like I am out tilling soil under a hot sun or going down into a coal mine for 14 hours.  I basically work from home a couple of hours a day, travel a couple of times of month, and the hardest part of my job is dealing with corporate political bullshit.  So I could coast on this path until I die at my desk or be forced into retirement when Mrs. Director forces me to join her on a year-long cruise.  Either way it means I am basically working to fill my hours, so it seems that I need to round myself out a bit and take up some hobbies.

So to fill those hours, "grow personally", and spend effort developing hobbies, I decided in 2024 to spend more time on these activities:

• Blogging - If you are reading this you know I am picking this up again after letting it go for most of a decade.  No one is reading this thing, but I don't really care as I am doing it for me, not you, Dear Reader. 
  
  
• Piano - I love classical music, especially piano concertos, but curiously wasn't moved to play what I enjoyed listening to until recently.  I was forced to take piano lessons as a kid and hated it, and my mother finally relented when I started junior high band at 11 and took up the trombone.  45 years later I saw a YouTube video about piano and decided that was my new hobby, and went the electronic route.
  
  The technology of today's electronic pianos is amazing.  I got an entry level Yamaha, and the feel is hard to tell from a real piano, and with headphones on it sounds pretty darn good.  Its small size (no piano movers!), low cost, good quality, and the ability to practice with headphones without bothering anyone makes piano much more easy to practice and play than half a century ago.  And the number of YouTube lessons and tips are amazing!  I could already read music okay, and thanks to Mom's forced lessons actually knew piano basics, fingering and most of the scales.  Having half a dozen YouTube teachers got me up and running again quickly to what I consider late beginner in just a couple of months, can get through Moonlight Sonata on month three with no problem.
  
  This is a hobby a really enjoy and practice 1-2 hours every day.
  
  
• Golf - Was already doing it, doing it more.  The problem is I am feeling my age catch up to me and am realizing that a physical hobby will just get harder and harder the later you go in retirement, making my piano hobby that much more important (but note piano has its own physical demands)
  
  
• Novels - I used to be a huge reader, but sort of lost interest in the last decade or so.  I do think the internet and social media have lead to less interest in long-form reading, and I am no exception.  The second problem is the vast majority of newly published material is massively woke.   I want to read to escape, not be lectured to, or beat over the head with the author's political views (talking to you Steven King).  But there are thousands of books published before the last decade, so a lot of this hobby is trying to find older books and authors I like.
  
  
• Video Gaming - Yes, I am a mid-50s guy who is into gaming, but note I was one of the kids that got one of the first home video game systems, the Sears Pong system for Christmas in 1975.  As years went by I had Atari, multiple Nintendos, handhelds, Xbox, Playstation.   I am actually ashamed to admit how many hours I spent on the Fallout series (Fallout 3, 4 and New Vegas).  But I am hot and cold on this hobby as the game has to really appeal to me for me to get into it.  To help me get more into gaming (as well as a tinkering with hardware), I just bought a Steam Deck.  The plan is to use it for both retro gaming as well as new games.  After the first week I can see that just tinkering with the hardware and getting emulators working for retro-gaming will take hours of time.

I will see what else I can find to fill the hours in retirement.  I am not including travel, which is a given for most retirees, and which I have done more than my fair share in the last 35 years on business trips.