Susan Smalley:

Perhaps the true sign of success is the ability to free oneself from work to engage in the active process of what Aristotle called idleness, the effortfully investigation of life to ‘know oneself.’ What if we were to cease ‘work’ when it no longer was for necessity; perhaps it would increase the ability of others to secure work toward a similar vein and allow for an increasing collective to investigate those age-old questions of ‘who am I’ and ‘what is the meaning of life’.

Perhaps the post-50 sign of true success is living the Idle life.

Age-old questions? Uh, excuse me, excuse me, but we were just informed in no uncertain terms by a melodramatic Philosophy 101 student that no one is asking those questions.

But seriously, though — post-50? Sheeit, I’m already living it pre-40, baby. I just — literally, just — paid off the little bit of credit card debt I had. The only financial obligation left is a mortgage, and I could easily foresee a day when even that becomes too onerous of a burden for my liking. And I’m going to be spending the majority of the next few days haunting library sales. As part of my job.

I do have a spare storage shed if anyone else wants to come join the slacker collective. Just chip in some for groceries, is all.