While I admire Harriet Harman’s attitude, we do have to be careful not to think that the only meaningful life is a busy one. Religions across the world have never thought that – with the exception of Protestant Christianity. But Protestant Britain forgot that the God in whose image we are made was not only an industrious creator, he also took time out to enjoy what he had made.
Too often we lose the capacity for enjoyment other than through work. In the gospels Jesus hints at how we may recover it when he says that if we are to enter the Kingdom of God we must become as little children. Perhaps what he has in mind is the capacity of children for self-forgetfulness in play. They do something because it is fun, worthwhile in itself, and not because it has some further justification beyond itself. This is what we lose in busy lives where everything must be useful or done for a purpose. If we are to enjoy older age we need to regain that spirit of play, and rediscover that light-hearted self-forgetfulness we knew as children. Sixty may be a good age to find it again.
The Boomers enter their second childhood…(as if they ever left their first one).
And ensure the bankrupt broken society they leave behind must works into their 70’s, cannot afford housing because they so raised inflation, and probably cannot retire themselves. Thank you so much!