I Am A Seeker - Participating in Philologue

"If you build it they will come..."  Sometimes I find myself in a conversation with someone who is contemplating retirement...wondering if the time is right and, more importantly, if they will be able to enjoy a fulfilling life without a regular job to fill the hours.  "How do you find things to do?" they ask.  Retiring early at 58, I have now enjoyed 12 1/2 years of retirement.  When Jay and I retired, we thought seriously about the semantics involved.  It was not retirement...it was re-creation...a time to reinvent, re-create ourselves while we recreate!

We kept our eyes and ears open and found many things to do, classes to take, places to see, books to read, skills to refine.  And....if we could not "find" something we were looking for, we could be part of "building" it.  That is what we did with Philologue.  This is the name we have given to a group of "like-minded" friends who have chosen to meet monthly to discuss various topics of interest.  It is really the brainchild of our friends, John and Lynn Taber.  After completing a very successful class in Omnilore some of the class members decided they wanted to continue their stimulating discussions by meeting regularly at each other's homes.  The name of our group comes from the word philology and is related to words and the love of discussion.

It is not easy to find a group of people who share inquiring minds and are willing to come together and talk meaningfully with each other, even if they have different opinions!  But I think the desire for such a group is nothing new.  There have been "salons," gatherings of people throughout history.  I don't know if we truly meet the definition of such a group, but we find ours very rewarding.  We have discussed fantastic topics like: Global Poverty, the War on Drugs, Health Care Reform, up-coming elections and propositions, Issues Facing the State of California, the Situation in Afghanistan, the Food Delivery System, Energy and Peak Oil to name a few.  Each month we choose the next month's topic and identify the host and then we come to the gathering prepared to share what we have discovered on the topic during the intervening time. In our discussions we question prevailing rhetoric and challenge ourselves to see where we stand on the issues.

Last Sunday we met at John and Lynn's home and the topic was the Supreme Court: the justices and key cases. 

Our hosts this month, John and Lynn Taber

For two hours we shared information with each other and discussed various aspects of how the Supreme Court works.  And of course, we love when the discussion winds down and we gather around the table to share appetizers!

The membership has changed over the 7 years that we have been meeting. Some have dropped out and their chairs have been filled by others. We keep our group small...just 11 of us...small enough so that everyone can participate but large enough to have a good exchange of opinions and thoughts. We always leave with new found clarity and often with some good ideas about what our legislators could be doing.  We are not as recognizable as "Brookings" or "Cato" or "Rand" but we would be happy to share our findings and conclusions!  Now if only some of them wanted our input!

We are looking forward to next month when we will gather at Karen's home to talk about Employment and the Job Market: How technical innovation will affect employment and what will be the jobs of the future. We will never run out of topics. 

So, bottom line, the message is...if you can't find what you are looking for in retirement, you can always help to create it!