I retired just over a couple of months ago, right at the beginning of the year. In the run-up to that much-anticipated date I figured I'd be posting more diaries and commenting here more often. But for some reason that has not been the case; in fact it has to some extent gone in the other direction. I hope nobody here will assume I'm about to launch into a rant about the Great Orange Satan. That's not going to happen; in fact I still like it here just fine.
(EDIT #2: The basis for this diary is a comment I posted in Cheers and Jeers a few days back in which I noted my somewhat diminished participation here of late.)
I'm going to go directly over the break for a quick meditation on unanticipated consequences.
Just to give you a bit of background; I am a life-long progressive and a life-long Democrat. In all probability my views might be slightly to the left of the mainstream of the Democratic Party but not so much so that I feel uncomfortable signing on to most of the party's agenda.
There are things I dislike about politics in general these days, foremost among those things being the malign influence of money disguised as "political speech." I do find it disheartening and that may have some influence in my recent relative lack of participation on Daily Kos. In all honesty there is something just a wee bit depressing to me about the rough-and-tumble world of party politics and I'm sure that plays a part as well. I really am not that much of a fighter, when you get right down to it.
Really though I think my distance has been driven more by far more personal considerations. Until the actual date arrived all I knew about retirement was that I wouldn't be going to work anymore. I always suspected however that the reality of the situation would contain surprises and that is in itself not a surprise.
I spend a good deal of time out of the house these days and so I'm not attached to the internet as much as I had been (don't tell anyone but I didn't spend all of my working hours doing actual work; I got done what I was supposed to get done so nobody ever complained). The reality has been thus far that I find myself at just a bit of a remove from many things. I ride my bike more; I socialize during the day more and I follow the news less closely than I'd have expected to. I try to keep up with the issues closest to my heart. I am a gay man so marriage equality, LGBT rights and general civil and economic equality/inequality, the separation of church and state, not to mention the fight against HIV and AIDS are very important concerns for me. But for some reason it feels as though partisan politics moves me less immediately than it used to. As long as I was a federal civil servant I was always directly affected by legislative activity. My salary, my being able to count on having a paycheck, my health and retirement benefits, not to mention the programs I took part in administering, all of those were directly affected by what Congress did and didn't do. So of course I paid close attention even if I sometimes had to restrain myself at the keyboard. It seems a bit of a paradox to me that while I'm now less constrained by the Hatch Act and I could actually be more outspoken than I could have been while I was working I seem less inclined to take advantage of that opportunity. No doubt there are still ways Congress can meddle with the lives of federal retirees like myself; if they even think about doing that you and they definitely hear from me. It occurs to me that a good deal of this seems a bit...how to put it?...selfish on my part. I suppose I'm just going to have to own that. There's the way you'd like to think of yourself and then there is the reality of things.
It's not that I don't care of course; I still have my personal views on things. I still get outraged at the latest moves by Boehner and McConnell and their crazier peers in the House and the Senate. I care that innocent people get murdered under cover of law and that the authorities do nothing about it. I care that business, even while it appears as a whole to be supporting my right to a civil marriage (should my partner and I choose to exercise that right) is simultaneously keeping the world back in dealing with climate change, economic inequality, environmental degradation and the rights of workers to organize. I care that there are those out there who view elections as something to be bought and sold. I care that there are still those who are intent on turning the United States into a rigid theocracy virtually indistinguishable from the "Sharia Law" they allegedly are opposed to, though that's mainly due to considerations of branding. (EDIT #1:) I care that ignorance has become a core value for a certain subset of those in power and that the promotion of ignorance by those folks is being aided and abetted by the skyrocketing cost of gaining an education.
The unfortunate fact that there are things I find to be distasteful in the world of politics doesn't entitle me to lapse into hopelessness or indifference. As election time gets closer I'll want to inform myself about who gets on the ballot for our side and what the issues are and I expect this site will continue to be my go-to for that kind of information as it has been since 2006. At the very least I can pretty much guarantee you that I won't be voting for any Republicans. And I will continue to have opinions.
I can't escape the feeling though that I'm taking somewhat of a turn inwards and that that turn has indeed been driven by this recent rather significant change in my life and my circumstances. It's great to feel that one is the sole agent of change in one's personal life but it appears that may not always be the case. You make choices and things happen that you didn't expect (I remember back in my college days those were referred to as "externalities"). The things you learn as you get older.
I'm still pretty new at this retirement thing; my attitude might very well change once again in a few weeks, or months or years. We'll see. I'm hoping I get more involved in the future rather than less involved. But time will tell.