"That leaves 30 years — 30 years of what? You’re going to knit? That's just crazy!"

Anne-Marie Slaughter is alarmed:

"For great writers, retirement is a fairly recent career option."

"There have always been writers, like Thomas Hardy and Saul Bellow, who kept at it until the very end, but there are many more, like Proust, Dickens and Balzac, who died prematurely, worn out by writing itself. Margaret Drabble may have started a trend when, in 2009, at the age of 69, she announced that she was calling it quits. [Alice] Munro said she was encouraged by the example of Philip Roth, who declared that he was done last fall, as he was getting ready to turn 80. 'I put great faith in Philip Roth,' she said, adding, 'He seems so happy now.'"

Should New York abandon mandatory retirement for judges aged 70?

70 for the highest court, 76 for some lower courts. There's a proposal to change this:

Some within the state’s judicial ranks have questioned [the] bill, saying it unfairly favors the high-level judges on the State Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals. Others counter that forced retirement encourages diversity, as older, white judges retire and are replaced by younger ones from minority groups....

Assemblywoman Weinstein pointed to a case where a “very vibrant” jurist was forced off the bench: Judith S. Kaye, longtime chief judge of the Court of Appeals, who stepped down in 2008 after turning 70.

In an interview, Ms. Kaye said she agreed that the retirement requirement should be changed. “When the age was fixed at 70, we were at a time when it was really old,” Ms. Kaye said. “Today, people are still very sharp and able — they are not statutorily decrepit.”

It was sad to see Judge Kaye needing to retire, but there's something to be said for moving judges along and bringing new people in. Here's the U.S. Supreme Court opinion that interpreted the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act not to cover state judges. The Court — composed, of course, of judges who themselves could not be forced to retire — noted the rational basis for age discrimination against judges:

The people... have a legitimate, indeed compelling, interest in maintaining a judiciary fully capable of performing the demanding tasks that judges must perform. It is an unfortunate fact of life that physical and mental capacity sometimes diminish with age... The people may therefore wish to replace some older judges. Voluntary retirement will not always be sufficient. Nor may impeachment — with its public humiliation and elaborate procedural machinery — serve acceptably the goal of a fully functioning judiciary.

The election process may also be inadequate. Whereas the electorate would be expected to discover if their governor or state legislator were not performing adequately and vote the official out of office, the same may not be true of judges. Most voters never observe state judges in action, nor read judicial opinions. State judges also serve longer terms of office than other public officials, making them — deliberately — less dependent on the will of the people....

This is also a rational explanation for the fact that state judges are subject to a mandatory retirement provision, while other state officials — whose performance is subject to greater public scrutiny, and who are subject to more standard elections — are not. Judges' general lack of accountability explains also the distinction between judges and other state employees, in whom a deterioration in performance is more readily discernible and who are more easily removed.

That was written by Sandra Day O'Connor — who retired from the U.S. Supreme Court, after 24 years, when she was 76.

"The conversations I had participated in for decades have now gone in another direction (indeed, in several other directions)..."

"... and I have neither the time nor, if truth be told, the intellectual energy required to catch up. Farewell to all that," said Stanley Fish, on selling his collection of books in preparation from his move from a house to a smaller apartment.

In the hours and days following the exodus of the books I monitored myself for a post-mortem (please excuse the hyperbole) reaction. Would I feel regret? Nostalgia? Panic? Relief? I felt nothing. What should have been a momentous event barely registered as I moved on to what seemed the more important task of choosing a new carpet. I was reminded of what a colleague who had left a university after 23 years replied when I asked him if it was difficult to do. He said, “It was like checking out of a motel.”

"My father, who has barely any formal education, but is whip smart, told a story to me right after the market crashed."

"He said that when he was starting his business in the late 70s, his accountant told him that if he just invests X percentage of his monthly income in an IRA, he will be a millionaire by the time he retires. My dad said to him, 'Bullshit. There is no way that the powers-that-be will let a poor schlub like me become a millionaire.' He was right, and will work until the day he dies."

I'm cherry-picking from a big discussion because of the way it's written, not to endorse the viewpoint.

"By the time you get to be a big fancy adult with a career and a house, your daily routine is basically just a collection of unconscious habits..."

"... You make coffee, commute by car, attend meetings and answer e-mails, shop in certain stores, watch TV and repeat. It becomes effortless."

Your brain goes into autopilot. Unfortunately, this also means it becomes hard to make changes.

But different habits, while being equally effortless, tend to add up in a good way over time. If you have a $50,000 take-home pay but are in the habit of living on $25,000 and investing the rest, that will put you ahead by about $350,000 every 10 years after compounding. A habit of biking instead of driving can keep you lively and fit into your 80s while saving you hundreds of thousands of dollars as well.

The key thing to remember is once you establish the habit, it becomes effortless and even pleasant to stay in the groove — even while your friends think you are some kind of unimaginably frugal bike-riding superhero.

I think the key is to be selective about where to make the cuts. Where are the places where you can change the habits and actually improve your life? The $4 latte may be worth it to you if that's how you get yourself out of the house and into a public place where you encounter other people and moderate loneliness into manageable solitude. A month of daily lattes might correspond to one item of clothing that gives you a moment of manic elation but then gets lost in your closet amongst scarcely dissimilar items.



Also, I'd say: Wake up and pay attention. I love normal, routine days, but the pleasure of ordinary days is lost if routine equals "a collection of unconscious habits." Be conscious and notice the experience of the things you do habitually. Live. If you do that, you should notice the components of your routine that aren't worth having. Where are you spending money out of proportion to the good it does for you personally?

The linked article is about a personal finance blogger ("Mr. Money Mustache") who "retired" at age 30. What does "retirement" mean"?

According to me, retirement means you no longer have to work for money. You then proceed to do whatever you like, without regard for whether or not it earns you money.

Some of what you do can be called "work," but the point is, you're not doing it for the money — and that kind of work is especially satisfying. You know you're doing it for its intrinsic value.

So where will you cut back? It seems to me (and to Mr. Mustache) that eating out and traveling are highly questionable activities. Like us, he largely eschews restaurants and does big American road trips for vacationing.

"Even if you write a book in two years, sometimes you get a page a day, sometimes you get no pages..."

"... every sentence raises a problem, and essentially what you're doing is connecting one sentence to the next. And you write a sentence and you have to figure out what comes next or what doesn't come next."

Says Philip Roth, who's now retired from writing. "It was a constant mental activity, really. And now I just listen, and it's quite nice. I go home and go to sleep... It was on my shoulders all my life, so I really didn't even know it was on my shoulders."

ADDED: When you write a blog, you don't have the struggle of connecting one sentence to the next. The next post comes next, and there needn't be any connection at all.

"A typical workday begins with the alarm clock. You shower, dress, eat and leave the house."

"You walk, drive, bike or train in to work; you chat with your co-workers; you stress over your to-do list; you meet with your boss or underlings; you sit at your desk and stare into the screen. Before you get home, you’ve probably also eaten lunch, run errands, hit the gym or the basketball court, and perhaps visited a friend or a relative."

That's the first paragraph of an article about the problems of retirement. (What happens when you lose all that structure and stress?) But I found that description of the "typical workday" implausible. Even assuming the typical worker has a desk job, I find it hard to believe that on a typical day, a working person slots in exercise, errands, and social calls on the same day.

This narrative of busyness and stress... is that what life is really like?

You know, back in the 1950s and 60s, you would constantly read about the problem of excessive leisure time. In the modern world — with automation and so forth — people would have so much free time it would be a problem. Are we living in the solution to that problem? Who imposed that solution and how?

"When Pope Celestine V quit his job in 1294, his successor locked him in prison and kept him there until he died."

"Pope Benedict XVI will not suffer the same sad fate. When he resigns today, not only will he not be jailed, exiled or even sent to a retirement home, he will get to stay in the Vatican."

This worries some Catholics who think having two popes in the house will make things a little crowded. Some even fear there is a nefarious scheme at work that will allow Benedict to exert undue influence on his successor.

Good luck working out the ex-Pope logistics. 

ADDED: "He has no intention of interfering in the position or the decisions or the activity of his successor. But as every member of the church, he says fully that he recognizes the authority of the supreme pastor of the church who will be elected to succeed him."

"What is the most dignified way for [Hillary Clinton] to make money?"

Jodi Cantor buries a key question in her NYT article about what Hillary Clinton will do next.

There are 2 things I notice are missing:

1. How old is Hillary Clinton? The NYT seems to love to tell us how old everyone they mention is, and I know that rule doesn't apply to someone who's in the news all the time, but when we talk about what Hillary will do next, we ought to consider the option: Nothing. She's 65. (I looked it up.) She can close the door on the public and live a private life.

2. Chelsea! There is one mention of Chelsea in the article. The Bill Clinton foundation — something Hillary could devote herself to — has "made strides lately, with... and more involvement from Chelsea Clinton." It seems to me that a big option for Hillary is to create the future political phenomenon that is Chelsea!