Birth is only one example of a metamorphosis. Everybody loves the drama of the egg/caterpillar/chrysalis/butterfly. Is it too sentimental and idealistic to wish for a transformation at retirement that has a little bit of beauty and drama?
Let's think of a young Dilbert in the corporate world as a real world-conqueror, like a gypsy moth in the caterpillar (larval) stage. But most young hot-shots will not become vice-president, so by age 40 Dilbert has plateau-ed and become a grumbler. The golden handcuffs keep him there for the next twenty years.
Sometimes it doesn't happen like this. Once upon a time in my corporate stage I went to a special lecture given by a consulting engineer. His talk was enthusiastically given and received. Another listener told me how it astonished him to see this consulting engineer as he appeared at the podium--so full of vitality and enthusiasm. The listener had known him when he was a standard salaryman of age 40, stuck in the usual malaise. And yet he went on to found his own consulting engineering company in Detroit of all places. (The automobile industry hardly has an entrepreneurial culture.) It all seemed like a miraculous transformation to the listener.
I think that at least a humble version of this sort of metamorphosis should happen to most people as they leave the chrysalis of corporate employment and grow independent wings. The normal pattern of couch, crossword puzzles, toob, golf, knitting, and potlucks doesn't inspire.
There is something puerile and sterile about limiting retirement to "having fun." Even the prettiest butterfly spends its life making a living--looking for food. Why shouldn't this happen to retirees? Why shouldn't they spend time making money, but on their terms?
Some retirees might say that they have enough money without worrying about work. Then why didn't they retire five years earlier?
