The Geography of Retirement

There is a particular geography of  retirement that only the retired have seen, and not even all of them. It exists somewhere on the frontier between reasonably judicious and self-aware caution on the one hand and un-reasoned paranoia on the other. Panic and fear do not dwell there but they might be said to live somewhere over the ridge-line that marks the horizon to the south. Academics (often with tenure, W2 income, or pensions) have certainly read about it in books and can, of course, render a map of the place with a fair degree of fidelity. Young professionals -- with all their focused ambition, un-examined proprietary tools and compensated service -- can only in their fevered dreams truly imagine the place, having heard tell mostly from strangers and old men passing on the road ("there be monsters").  The retired that have walked that frontier know the place.  This is why I trust them.