Wish I could retire now actually

I've never understood people who get bored in retirement. I looked forward to it from the very start of my career, and now that I am retired I've gotten so into hobbies and interests that it feels like there still isn't enough time for everything.
- Here's to hoping we still have the physical ability to engage with those hobbies and interests.
- Yeah, I also have 5 hobbies and many more interests. I am only scared that I don't have enough energy left in me once I retire.
  
  It's amazing how much energy you get from waking up without the obligation to go somewhere and work on somebody else's shit all day because you have to. Gives me a big smile every morning!
- it's because they had enjoyable work. not the slave trade were in today.
  
  Oh yeah I forgot, careers were an endlessly fulfilling series of fun exciting tasks. And job interviews were like, "A white male with a college degree? You're hired!" Everybodty's ignorant fantasies about the past are staggeringly accurate!
  
  Lol to thinking that it was better. Capitalism was always terrible for normal people.
  But many people just don't have a lot of hobbies. Change is also scary for many people.

Until you start playing an MMO and turn it to a new job.

If you retire with no SS, medicare, an insurance that is required to cover you, medicaid to keep the doors open for even a retirement home to care for you, and your 401K is destroyed from the plunging depression that's on the rise... it might be cool to worry a bit.

Retirement home LAN parties... That's the dream
- Invites all around! Remind me in 20 years.
- Dude. Yes.
- That’s what I keep going for
- Hopefully all your friends are still around
  
  That might be a problem. What friends?

I'll be riding my bike till I feel and die.

Gaming and smoking a shit ton of weed in retirement is gonna be great… if we still have social security and access to 401k’s at that point lmao
- That sounds like what I do now except I have to start at 4:45 instead of when I wake up...
- If they cut the system, we'll get the money in our pay. So at least we can control it. Just don't spend it on games that will hit your backlog and sit for years. I'm personally guilty btw.
  
  Just don't spend it on games that will hit your backlog and sit for years.
  What do you think I plan on doing in my retirement?

Everyone I know who retired is at least as busy as before.
The notion that without a job, people just sit around bored, is capitalist propaganda.
- It's insane to me that people think they will somehow go braindead the minute they don't have a job. Is that how they act once they get home after a long and exhausting day of labouring? Just sit down in the couch and die, staring at the white wallpaper until they collapse? From my only related experience with actually existing in this life, I fucking hate how I don't have time for anything, ANYTHING, ever, because work work work, only to go home and work work work some more as an adult with actual responsibilities. Retirement ya, i might get a quarter of my shit in order, at best, but I'd probably just stock it with more responsibilities that I really don't have time for, but a window of more time means a window of thinking about more shit that has been neglected or needs doing because things always do.
  
  Is that how they act once they get home after a long and exhausting day of labouring? Just sit down in the couch and die, staring at the white wallpaper until they collapse?
  Replace the wallpaper with a television and this is awfully familiar in my neighborhood.
  
  A decent amount of people really do just park their ass on the couch and cease existing. I've watched more than a few people retire and die shortly after from having nothing to live for.
  
  To be fair, that is exactly what I do some days after work because this shit is needlessly exhausting. I think I need like a year of sickly Victorian style bedrest because I have been so burned out for so long that I don't really have much of a sense of self at this point.
- I somehow end up busier whenever I have long stretches of time off. Idle hands create hundreds of projects.

I dunno. I game less and less every year. I think I’ll probably just play the odd n64 game by the time I retire.
- You have to pick one n64 game. Go.
  Do not disappoint me.
  
  Ocarina of Time. Randomizer.
  
  Superman 64
  
  I know you'll be disappointed, but Mario 64 has a fair number of levels and star missions. So, either that or Star Fox (your score can always be a little better).
  
  Megaman legends.
  
  Blast Corps
  
  Definitely oot, but if I could pick two, it'd be this super weird game I've never been able to find again, or remember the name of. Had a kind of Hawaiian theme, iirc. There was a conch shell you blew. It was weird, and I loved it so much
- Yep, most of us won't really have the energy to get into a 100 hours + game, a platform, an indie or a retro beloved game? Yeah I can see that.
  
  I know right. Elden Ring looks so damn good but there’s no way I can get into it at that playtime.

I don't think any amount of achievable retirement savings is enough to give me confidence that I could cover escalating health care costs enough that I could retire. Even if I had $10M in the bank, I would worry that the cost of health care will rise fast enough to impoverish me.
- You just move to a county with actual Healthcare as part of your retirement. Won't even need 5 mil.
- If you make it to Medicare age, it gets a lot less stressful. eg: my folks have had 4 knees replaced with very little out-of-pocket cost. There's still supplemental insurance, but Medicare, not the profit-driven insurance company, determines what gets covered, and they mostly listen to doctors. There's always edge cases, where some treatment might not be covered, but I feel like those are uncommon.
  One way or the other, my ultimate health care plan is 9mm.
  
  I have no confidence that medicare will still exist. It could be gone by next month.
  
  I'm surprised that Trump doesn't use Obama care to prescribe 9mm medication to people. It's a lot cheaper to pay a one time cost of a 9mm that reoccurring costs of medication. Think about it, health care costs plumit and firearms sales skyrocket. It's a republican wet dream.

I just hope my hands hold out long enough. I already have terrible arthritis in both hands.
- In a better timeline this is one of the many things a Neuralink could be good for
  
  Have you check out the neuro crown devices? They are very work outside and can do some basic games already
  
  I'm still holding out hope for full-dive VR in the next 20-30 years.
- Yeah my hands started acting up when I was in my 30s. Now that I’m in my 40s they cramp and become useless when they’re any amounts of cold.
  My wife likes to rock climb but she will only go to the gym if I go. I can handle the pain but my fingers will literally just stop opening and closing. I haven’t gotten the courage to talk to her about it yet.
  
  Do gloves (fingerless for climbing) do anything to help?
- VR gaming bro.

My father is retired and still needs to use PowerPoint. He is very bad at retirement.

What's retirement?
- It's a carrot on the end of the stick that's tied to your back
- That really big bill when they run out of rubber to patch on your car

By the time I retire I hope we're in or moving towards a mix of solarpunk and star trek like utopia

I'll restart and 100% stardew valley or die trying. Always wanted to commit to it, never did.

"Error connecting to PSN Servers" (no longer exist)
- The PS9 is backwards compatible with PS4 controllers.
  
  The PS9 services for the PSN have been discontinued. Please upgrade to the PS11 to continue using your endocrine system.

And then you die because a blood clot that formed in your leg came loose and shot up into your brain, because you’ve been sitting for weeks playing videogames.
- Worth
- Get one of those fancy massage chairs to help blood flow
  
  By the time I retire it'll probably be an omnidirectional treadmill for VR gaming

Sorry, no SS for you. Back to the office.

Parkinson's disease in 3,2,1...
- Gonna be kicking ass on dynasty warriors!
- Grandpa's got an extra twitchy trigger finger, better watch out!
- Helps my APM
- No, but there was time now...
- I can finally replay that game for the first time again. /s

Me and the homes in the old person dorm. Playing games, watching movies, doing community service.

Day 3170 here.. that's still what I'm doing... But in Athens, and mouse+keyboard.

Just plug my old ass into the matrix. If I live to see 80 we'll probably have some kind of full dive VR by that point. Or at least something approaching it.
- We will but the interface used to full dive will be used to influence your thoughts and getting you to buy stuff
  
  Jokes on them, I won't have any money to buy stuff

Walking dog, feeding homeless, getting drunk, magic the gathering and dnd with my other retired friends. That’s what I would do if I ever retired, which I probably won’t because of everything.

I'm never going to be able to retire. It must be nice

Factorio here I come.
- The factory must grow.

I will eat a shitton of acid 😆
- I ain't waiting that long to take acid
  
  🤣 fair 🫶🏻
  But, I guess, with gaming you don’t wait for so long either 😉

Finally, I will get to finish my backlog
- Lies, you'll keep buying new games every fall steam sale

Legit though, it isn't as cool as its cracked up to be.
- Guess everyone's different. I'm a stay at home dad with a wife that works and I'm incredibly happy doing chores for a couple hours then indulging my hobbies until school pickup. I have time to exercise. I have time to cook good meals (and learn to do so). It's been 13 years and no sign of getting sick of it yet. She has a high paying job that she's happy in and is someone that would tell me if she had an issue. This was suggested by her.
  I don't know how anyone can get bored without work. There are 1000 things that you can do as "work" that surely there must be some that any given person would enjoy. Learning music, language, gardening, coding, makeup, design, art, games, woodwork, exercise I could go on and on and on.
  I could somewhat understand 50+ years ago. But we have the INTERNET now. We have unprecedented access to entertainment and knowledge. Anything you could ever want to know or learn or watch is available to you. And if you find the online resources inadequate for learning to play that obscure instrument or practise speaking that language, I bet you you can find someone to teach you over video call.
  Judge away but I'm happy and don't know how anyone could find working better. The only thing working truly gives you is money. Any sense of fulfilment or purpose I guarantee can be found elsewhere as well.
  That's not to say work CAN'T be fulfilling or meaningful though. Just that it's not the only path or unique to working like people like to make out.
  
  I always wanted to be a stay at home dad. My wife's a gig worker and tried branching out on her own business and quickly realized she didn't like the actual business aspect. Which is fine, I genuinely love what I do most days and make enough to where she can mostly stay at home.
  I'm about to go on a 3 month paternity leave and oh boy am I excited. After the first few weeks once my wife recovers from surgery it'll most be my oldest and I hanging out while my wife is with our second. I bought stuff for my son and I to record our guitars (he's 3 but he gets so into it), have a little list of science experiments that he loves, plenty of home renovation projects that he gets surprisingly into, a bunch of seeds and a few more raised beds for the garden, and of course, foam baseball bats to hit eachother with.
  I'm getting git just thinking about it.
  I don't see how anyone could get tired of that, I'm already dreading going back to work and my break hasn't even started.
  PS: not to say that it's all fun, I know a lot more goes into being a stay at home parent that baseball bat fights.
  
  Nah, no judgement at all!
  I think part of that gap is whether or not the retirement is a choice, and how much you can engage in life.
  See, for you, you actually still have a "job". You have a shape to your life, a purpose, a structure.
  As people get older, there's less of that. And, sometimes less ability to engage in the fun stuff.
  It's all situational, really.
- Idk I've been unemployed with enough savings to not go straight into job hunting. I had a blast spending most of my time gaming. Just helps to have a few other smaller hobbies.
  
  Agreed, I took about 10 months off after quitting my last job, and ended up moving about 4 months into it. I never got bored and the only downside was that I had to find a job eventually. It was the best 10 months I can remember.
  
  Yah, that's fun. But that's also short term. Long term, you end up having to find stuff to do more than just drift.
- It's great for the first few weeks , maybe a month or two.
  I graduated in September, job searched through December, finally signed a contract, but I don't start until April. I am counting down the fucking days, my dude.

You ever actually spent most of your time just playing video games? It gets old real quick.
- Yes, and it was a lot more fun that working.
  Maybe you played shitty games?
- I don't know, I was unemployed for a while and literally spent every waking hour gaming for many months straight. It was the happiest time of my life. I'd give up a lot to be so financially stable I could do that again.
- If you mix video games and diy projects it can be satisfying and fulfilling for years.
  For me the social aspect is the hardest because i don't make friends online and am bad at keeping in regular contact with my real life friends.
  
  I substitute socialising with small streaming channels. Like the ones that have less than 5-10 people watching ever. You can come and go as you please and no one cares, and you can make real connections and have actual conversions with both the streamer and other viewers. People with channels that small aren't doing it for the money, they're doing it to have people to chill with while they play.
  Some would say they aren't real friends but I think there's a point you can get to where I would disagree.
- During the lock downs I got furloughed for a week. I spent most of it playing Dwarf Fortress.
- Having one thing be your only hobby will get boring for the majority of people, so just have some extra hobbies. I could definitely spend 75% of my time gaming and the rest on other hobbies and feel great.

Wow… nice.

You can start right now. Kill your boss. Quit ya job.
- Kinda hard to have the retirement OP is suggesting when you run out of money in a month lol But I get your sentiment
  
  It's the thought that counts?

- Good thing we invented glasses.
  
  Cataracts has joined the server.