@QMS I applaud your excursions into learning, through local groups and clubs, new or improving on current skills. You are navigating uncharted waters, Cap'n. Land, ho!
To add to my other concerns, the State Bar of Texas is offering assistance, courses, classes, all about retiring or managing your practice if you get sick or injured. I see something about it almost daily, like something is going on. I see warnings about the duty to keep up with new technology in order to comport with our professional ethics. My pals and I believe it is a concerted effort to push us out and usher in the young tech wiz kids. Almost all live, in person mandatory Continuing Legal Education classes are sponsored by some company selling AI programs. I have gotten CLE attendance credit for required hours, which are reported yearly, taught by non-lawyer tech guys. Large firms are being taught how to incorporate and capitalize on new clients that have done their own AI research before hiring said firm. So, capitalize on the amateurish research, don't argue with it. (I show a prospective client the door when I see their AI trash.)
Well, for now, I love going to work.
We shall see.
Enjoy your weekend, dear friend!

.
Slow walking away from a career
(or a lifetime) of striving has its challenges.

The new 'reality', as you pointed out, is encumbered with
physical and mental issues which require a skill set not
necessarily developed during said career or lifetime.

Guess we make it up as we go along. Personally think we
are more than what we identify with. I mean yeah, I have been
a boat captain most of my life. Part of that stays with you after
throwing the last line on the dock. The ship of life continues.

Thanks for the thoughts and tunes chica!

Rainy day here. Working on a jigsaw puzzle of
Puerto Vallarta to keep insanity at bay.

@usefewersyllables Your urge to express love is wonderful, sir. Much respect. Just yesterday, my Dear One suggested a compromise: on days I have no court or client interviews, I could just stay home and relax, have fun with him, and go up to the office if my secretary needed me for something. My office is a 2-3 minute drive from home. That may be a good way to transition.
Music helps. I thought I would share a piece with you and everyone that I played at recitals and competitions when I was 10ish. 60 yrs later, I still remember how to play portions of it from memory.

Enjoy a weekend of wife time, friend!

a quandary. When you have invested the vast majority of your adult life into the single-minded pursuit of a profession, largely to the exclusion of everything else in life, seeing the end of the line is daunting- and having it forced upon you is downright shattering.

Many professions, like medicine and the law, have semi-built-in mechanisms to encourage practitioners to stay current with the latest developments in the field. While brutal, this is wise in a professional sense, because it allows practitioners to allocate their time appropriately and in somewhat organized ways: there is a structure there.

For engineers, and especially for a silicon-jockey like me, there is no such mechanism. The field is run by the golden devil-take-the-hindmost rule: you have to keep yourself as current as humanly possible, on your own time. And in recent decades, the pace of obsolescense of entire technologies has accelerated- exactly according to Moore's Law. Keeping up with that development pace is agonizing: even if I don't intend to do design work at the 3 nanometer process node for semiconductors, I damned well have to stay fully abreast of it, just in case being able to demonstrate knowledge of it becomes nonoptional for that whole making-a-living thing.

To an extent, it is even worse if one decides to become a consultant: your advice absolutely has to be based upon the current state of the art. My first designs (albeit, not in a professional setting) were with vacuum tubes, back at the very beginning of the integrated-circuit era in the early 70s. Then, discrete transistors, but not for long- when I was still in college, Gary Boone and his crew at TI did the 4004 microprocessor (well before the Intel pukes did theirs, BTW), and discrete design (as well as the use of a slide rule) essentially died on the spot. My first chip design was in 5 micron NMOS, a process that was immediately obsoleted by the common intruduction of CMOS for ICs. My next was 2 micron CMOS, and my most recent efforts have been at the 90 nanometer node, which has now been relegated to a historical footnote in the dustbin of the 20th century.

Boone was my career mentor, and I'm eternally grateful to have known him- and still devastated by his loss, to this day. He passed due to Lewy Body dementia, and it was agonizing to see him wrestle with it. He is one of those souls who either would or could not reinvent himself. And when he could no longer do it at the level he had reached, it very rapidly killed him: much more so than the disease itself.

I have apparently reached the point where people think that I should be retired, for my own good. What the hell is that? Who in their right mind would have the sheer effrontery to tell me what I'm allowed to to with my brain, while it is still working at all? Sure, my short-term memory is trash, my balance stinks, I'm still throwing TIAs despite being anticoagulated into hæmophilia- but I'm still productive, dammit. Thus, my point: In my mind, I'm still relevant. But perhaps I no longer am, to my employer or potential customers.

They say that fear is the mind-killer. I would say that irrelevance is the mind-killer. And if your professional life has centered around the use of your mind, while your physical carcass has withered from age and inattention, then you certainly face a real decision point, when suddenly you perceive that the door is closing behind you.

I'm at that point now. At least I have a period of a few months to make those decisions. If I intend to ramp my consulting practice back up, the treadmill-requirement of continuing knowledge of these technologies is still grinding along, and there is no way off of it. And I'm now 10 years down a corporate wage-slave rabbithole, which means that the folks that used to hire me in the patent field have all retired or died. So it'd be a complete start-from-scratch effort. But if I just call it a career and decide not to rehang my shingle, what then?

What then, indeed. "Home is the sailor, home from the sea; and the hunter, home from the hill"... It's altogether too likely for for folks like me.

At least I'll have more mental energy left over at the end of the day to love on my long-suffering wife, who has spent so much of her mental energy for the last 3-plus decades in keeping going the singlethreaded monster that is I. But the next chapter will require a complete mental reinvention. Complete. It is very much akin to developing a new character that one intends to perform 24/7 for the rest of one's life. No wonder it is daunting.

Ahh, well- enough manic-depressive ramblings for the day. I'm currently working the big batch of sourdough for our little celebration, so that pleasant task calls. Actually, come to think of it- I'm also writing a punk rock protest tune in A minor right now, based upon a theme from Beethoven. I've decided to title it "Für Autolyse"... (;-)

Be safe out there!

@ban nock Playing the stock market is not for sissies, is it? What a gamble!
It would be easy for me to start up a private secondary school. I am certified to teach at jr high and high school level in English, geography, sociology, history, psychology, and government. I would need an associate for the sciences and math classes, but that would be easy to accomplish. A lot of teachers want out of the public school system, and parents want better education for their kids.
My biggest hesitancy would be a refusal to accept students on any drugs that alter their moods and/or behaviors. I would not teach to the pill.
Lots to think about as we progress into our final stage of life, friend.
Meanwhile, enjoy your weekend!

I lost more money over the past week than I've made working in one year for most of my life. Thankfully I found a feature called a "stop buy" where as soon as chip makers fell below a dollar amount my equities turned into a money market. So I'm entirely in interest now, I think just under 4%. I can't complain. Around 30% per year for 3 years is more than enough. I labor and have many injuries.

I still work a little, probably best to do a little so I still have a business.

For individuals supplanted by AI I'm sympathetic on a personal level. In the larger sense, I care about as much as the professional managerial class cares about the massive importation of illegal labor to suppress working class wages, or sending manufacturing to Mexico and China.

Both of my kids use AI extensively, as does everyone in STEM fields, or they will be replaced. AI makes people much more productive, but it does hallucinate. It's even more important that people know what they are doing. Professionals who do lose their jobs to AI an do all those things they told us to do. Retrain, learn to code, move, etc.

I haven't seen much use of AI on the consumer level. Radiologist read my Xray last week. Met with docs three times. Got drugs from a pharmacist who counted them out by hand. Architects cost a lot and aren't always any good, I'd think AI would be good there, also simple legal stuff, I'd like to set up a trust.

@enhydra lutris I had to laugh about your joint pain non-answer! Lol!
We did our main grocery shopping yesterday, planning on doing some house cleaning ahead of the work crew that is coming Monday to upgrade a bathroom and install a walk in shower. The other bathroom is due for an upgrade this winter. I absolutely will work to pay for this without touching my savings. The remaining upgrade would be a car port, but the pre-fabs, 4 hr. installs, simply aren't good quality. In a few years, you can literally kick them over.
So far, we have not done a single act of house cleaning. We are bad.

Enjoy your weekend, dear friend!

grocers. Still have t hit a cheese shop plus costco next week, but done for the weekend. That is good because certain out of control bushes are demanding attending and it's time to check the bean bushes for product again.

I know you will be active and busy enough if you retire, unlike those who die shortly afterr because they had no other life or interests and no desire to get any. The sole question is hwehter or not you are 1) ready to give it up and/or 2) aggravated enough that you can't keep it up without destroying your health.

Finances are alays scry, especially on reduced or fixed income. We still make it a point to salt away a good chunk of our revenues each month, both jointly and individually, while trying to still tavle and such, which involves an odd degree of frugality when we consider our reserrves, but the future is, as they say, uncertain. OTOH, so is health. I had a phone appointment with a new doctor yesterday, replacing one who had retired. At one point he asked me if I had any joint pain, which stopped me until I figured out that he was probably concerned about side effects from my infusions. I almost said "shit yeah, man, I'm seventy furking nine, of course I have joint pain, who doesn't.

be well and have a good one.

@soryang What pageantry!!! Many thanks!
There is another aspect about keeping on keepin' on for me. It's being in the know about what is going on in county government. The mayor, the sheriff, the district clerk, a constable, a school board member, the EMS chief, child protective services chief investigator, and precinct commissioner are all clients, and having
them on speed dial is valuable to me.
I can't wait for your post to inform us you are moved and happily settled in to your new digs, my friend!
Enjoy your weekend!

...that should give anyone career or retirement advice. I was just exhausted.

In lieu of that I'll do what I think I was meant to do. I read this short Li Bai poem yesterday on the East Asia Student blog that has an ironic twist that one might find in a Rod Serling plot. I spent a few hours looking at the EAS English translation.

焚書坑 (Fén Shū Kēng), ‘The Book Burning Pit’,

As bamboo and silk smoke clears, the Emperor's achievements are for nothing;
The Hangu Pass and Yellow River vainly guard the (Emperor) Qin Shi Huang's domain.
Pits of ash not yet cold, the east of the Xiao Mountains in chaos;
(The rebels) Liu Bang and Xiang Yu, by nature, do not read.

Burning Books and Burying Scholars That is how some interpreters characterize the title. The burying of scholars by the Qin empire is disputed, not the book burning. The character 坑 for burying alive and pit is the same, giving rise to some confusion. The Qin Empire was very short lived. I changed the East Asia Student's translation just a little, based on my interpretation, and also to make the poem easier to understand. There is a debate apparently among scholars on the meaning of the fourth line.

The reign of Liu Bang as emperor of the subsequent Han Dynasty (after defeating rival Xiang Yu who really didn't like reading at all), was that he took a liking to a Confucian scholar and ostensibly imposed Confucian ethics and hierarchy as a reform measure, to preserve his dynasty. Former "illiterate" Liu Bang had a "come to Confucius moment" as it were as the Han Emperor. In any case, my interpretation of 原來 (originally, naturally, by nature, since the beginning) is different from the EAS scholar in the fourth line. Translations are not definitive as EAS often points out. I usually say of my song interpretations in Korean, it's a work in progress.

There are historical debates about the meaning of the last line in terms of what exactly the point is. I'm going with the ironic twist. Were scholars reading a lot of books recorded on "bamboo and silk" the custom in the third century bc., really the cause of all the social unrest or was it just the legacy of too many wars, corruption, and bad government that preceded the short lived Qin government? It is said nevertheless that the Qin empire laid the foundation for Chinese civilization's longevity and the more successful Han Dynasty. Reportedly, the Qin destroyed the records of past rival states in this regard, so naturally it seems that way. I guess the moral of the poem from Li Bai is "how did that book burning work out for you?"

After, I came across this entertaining (I think) upbeat performance by indigenous Tsou dancers in Alishan District of Taiwan province. The outfit of the singer seems oddly out of place, but I thought it worth enjoying anyway because we had seen a similar but more subdued performance in Wulai District by Atayal people many years ago:

This google translation doesn't seem too bad:

Alishan 阿裏山

The mountains are green, the streams are blue.
The girls of Alishan are as beautiful as water.
The boys of Alishan are as strong as mountains.
Ah— The girls of Alishan are as beautiful as water.
The boys of Alishan are as strong as mountains.
The mountains are evergreen, the streams are ever blue.
The girl and the boy will never be apart.
The clear water forever encircles the green mountains.
The mountains are evergreen, the streams are ever blue.
The girl and the boy will never be apart.
The clear water forever embraces the green mountains.
Ah—

I believe the dancers are Tsou people from the Alishan district in Taiwan.

Thanks for the O&E OntheCusp. I'm trying to prepare. I would just blow it off, but need to move Ms. So back to the extended family environs. It's gonna take months and a lot of effort to reorganize our lives.