I am 64 and wondering what I am going to do next in my career. I have plenty of work and nobody thinks about my retiring, but I am a bit bored after doing more or less the same job since 1994 (17 years). Before that, the longest I ever stayed in the same job was 9 years, even though the work changed every one or two years.
Wu Wei has been my personal blog since January 2005, which has followed my home moves from Greece back to the UK to Lithuania, and my work moves from Kosovo, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Ukraine, Turkish Cyprus, and for the last 4 years to Georgia (Caucasus). Its title came from my interest in the Tao, my need for some way to understand life's buffeting as I grappled with temporary contracts in different countries and tried to keep a stable life for my growing kids.
I used to blog when I was sitting bored, either at home (doubting about my next contract) or in a hotel room in a strange country, but Georgia is no longer strange, and I have friends and a life as well. My blog seems to have a life of its own, with the popular posts remaining with large numbers of hits (it seems there are still plenty of people who want to know about Greek horta and reviews of Albanian novels about blood feuds).
My family history (the Eastern European father of known but mysterious provenance) and my own early adventures (travels, marriages, homes in various parts of the UK) are still a work in progress, but being written. Family photos are nearly all scanned but not yet forming any story.
I now communicate with blog friends by Facebook and twitter, or even in person sometimes. So the blog has been rarely updated recently.
But now I feel the urge to write stuff again. My contract in Georgia is coming to an end, I am wondering whether to go back to university for a year, my ailments are growing and my kids are independent. Life in Russia is getting more interesting to comment on. Thanks to Bee studying social anthropology and learning Arabic, my holidays are more exotic than my work these days.
So what next? I thought I would explore that on the blog. So maybe I could find encouragement and a different set of blog friends. I hope my younger blog friends will not mind the occasional (hopefully) foray into diet restrictions, illnesses and any memory lapses. Probably there will be some changes in the design of the blog to keep my IT skills up to date. Irritation and rants will be as normal (being a feature of most people's blogs) but hopefully they will not take over, indicating I am becoming a grumpy old person.
I have only one friend older than me, and while I am very fond of her, it is difficult to discuss careers and ageing with only one person available. So I decided to look for blogs on ageing, or at least blogs from older people who are still active, and willing to discuss ageing issues. So links may increasingly go to those blogs.
Best wishes for the New Year. As the Chinese curse has it, may we all live in interesting times.
