Sunday, April 05, 2015

Travelment : A Proposal

The English language is versatile and descriptive.  It currently contains over 1,000,000 words but even that's not enough. The Oxford English Dictionary adds new words at the rate of 1000/per quarter. And yet, with all those words, old and new. I can't find the right word for my next phase in life.  Or to put it another way, I've got an issue with describing what we're doing as 'retirement'. 
There has got to be more options that this!

a :  an act of retiring :  the state of being retired
b :  withdrawal from one's position or occupation or from active working life 

 Neither S.D. nor I have any plans to be retiring. Sure, we're not going to be working for a paycheck, but we're  going to be active, and we're going to accomplish stuff. In fact one of the reasons we're 'retiring' is so we can be more active and get more done. Sitting and earning a paycheck while not fulfilling our potential is not living.

Yeah! That's what I'm talking about.
What are alternatives to 'retirement'? You could say we're going into activement.  But then that seems a bit too broad. It could be describing a life lived in a gym, or even on a treadmill. We're going to be active but with a purpose, we're going places. Going to live as light and close to the ground as possible. Going to travel as a way of life.  How about travelment?

Travelment
a: the act of traveling as a way of life

And there's lots to do. 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I like vagabond better.

vag·a·bond
ˈvaɡəˌbänd/
noun
1.
a person who wanders from place to place without a home or job.
informaldated
a rascal; a rogue.
adjective
adjective: vagabond
1.
having no settled home.