Contemplating My Stage 3 of Either 4 or 5

Many cultures over thousands of years – and here I won’t back this assertion up. Just assume it’s true for now. Maybe I’ll toss references some other day – have a theory about “stages of life.”  These can range from one monolithic life of whatever length to two stages (childhood and then adult) to four or five or more...like a play in "n" acts.  My favorite framework, for reasons all my own, is the Hindu/Vedic system of 4 life stages which feels about right to me even though advances in tech and medicine might nudge the boundaries and definitions a bit.  It is time tested in the sense that it has been around for a good long while.  Here, stripped directly from Wikipedia, is how the stages are described in that ashrama framework.

Stage	~age	Description
Brahmacharya (student life)	<25	Brahmacharya represented the bachelor student stage of life. This stage focuses on education and included the practice of celibacy. The student went to a Gurukul (house of the guru) and typically would live with a Guru (mentor), acquiring knowledge of science, philosophy, scriptures and logic, practicing self-discipline, working to earn dakshina to be paid for the guru, learning to live a life of Dharma (righteousness, morals, duties).
Grihastha (household life)	25-48*	This stage referred to the individual's married life, with the duties of maintaining a household, raising a family, educating one's children, and leading a family-centered and a dharmic social life. Grihastha stage was considered as the most important of all stages in sociological context, as human beings in this stage not only pursued a virtuous life, they produced food and wealth that sustained people in other stages of life, as well as the offspring that continued mankind. The stage also represented one where the most intense physical, sexual, emotional, occupational, social and material attachments exist in a human being's life
Vanaprastha (retired life)	48-72*	The retirement stage, where a person handed over household responsibilities to the next generation, took an advisory role, and gradually withdrew from the world. Vanaprastha stage was a transition phase from a householder's life with its greater emphasis on Artha and Kama (wealth, security, pleasure and desires) to one with greater emphasis on Moksha (spiritual liberation)
Sannyasa (renounced life)	>72**	The stage was marked by renunciation of material desires and prejudices, represented by a state of disinterest and detachment from material life, generally without any meaningful property or home (Ascetic), and focused on Moksha, peace and simple spiritual life. Anyone could enter this stage after completing the Brahmacharya stage of life.

*not my age suggestions… straight from wiki. In the modern world this doesn’t quite work

**or anytime

So, given that setup, one of my struggles of late is that I feel like I am clearly entering stage 3 or 4 -- with the aging out of my kids and the extended experience of my retirement over 12 years.  I am, however and as an example, still part of a family and also part of an active men’s group where stage 2 is big and is also the common expectation and experience in conversation and action. My problem, I guess, is that I am no longer building empires and don't expect to do so. While I can still play the game on stuff like business, intellect, fitness, romance and energy, the truth is that I am moving along a very different trajectory these days than my younger peers.  When I hang out with the cohort that gives me support and life, this is generally what I see:

•         Men expanding and changing and dominating their domain of existence.
•         They are building marriages and families. They have young children w more on the way.
•         They are building households: new houses, bigger ones, equipping, acquiring.
•         They are, or are about to be, in the full force of their sexual lives or should be.
•         They are constructing themselves intellectually and professionally to be better.
•         They are actively reaching out to their communities to work and contribute.
•         They are literally getting bigger physically or should be. Jacked. Strong. Healthy.
•         They either have or should develop martial skills for defense of family and community.
•         They are focused on building resources and wealth for themselves and those that can’t.
•         They often have material goals. Objects or markers of wealth or status can attract.

Give or take a little. I haven't thought this through thoroughly and with Covid, I haven’t been out of the house much so idk. But here is what I am thinking: past a certain age – not always, but more often than not I think – that strong flow of life above, the life I've been mired in for 40 years, starts to ebb and sometimes even reverse a bit. If you haven’t guessed yet, that is the ebb tide I think I am now in. To summarize, let’s say maybe the following: 

• I am not having more children and will not marry again
• I am incrementally and sequentially reducing the size of my home and future homes
• I am actively deaccessioning and reducing what I both own and buy
• I am more prone to age related risk in health. My back hurts; my eyes suck; things don’t work
• I am not currently – but might be – seeking more business opportunities or wealth. TBD
• My interest in sex and relationships is past its peak and not nearly as important as once
• I am mostly done with a 10-year project in the quantitative finance and econ of retirement
• I am now more interested in right brain than left. Literature and art interest me more than math
• While I am reasonably jacked, I have no desire to be a lot bigger or a deadlifter for example
• I might take on some martial practice but at 62 my ability to fight is low and getting lower
• I do not – knock on wood – need to acquire more wealth or resources. I conserve what I have
• Material object bore me; the spiritual sorta calls, but like Augustine, maybe not just yet.

So is it really Vasnapratha for me now?

The word above for the stage I think I’m in translates, so I hear, to “retiring to the forest.” While that is almost exactly what I will do in 2023 (suburban north forest), the concept itself supposedly does not literally mean retire to the forest. It is more metaphorical and even in ancient India the old dudes did not always literally go out and retreat into desolation. I mean some did but that is not the point. They stayed in their homes and communities and changed their way of thinking and living. They handed the mantle of energy to the young and took on other pursuits. That is precisely my plan for my journey: i.e., my journey towards stage 3 and away from stage 2. In the context of this blog that means less spread-sheeting and coding and more consideration for what is important which is probably not spread-sheeting and coding.  TBD. Might still code a bit for fun.