He's 72 years old and has his wits. Unfortunately, he doesn't have any hobbies. I'm concerned he'll get bored/depressed/stressed after the initial novelty of being retired wears off. He'll now have an extra 40 hours a week to fill, nobody to talk to during the day (except my mom), and nothing to exercise his mind and keep him sharp as he gets older. Also, he was highly skilled at his job and his department depended on him to get their work done. I think he'll miss looking forward to waking up in the morning and working on something where he knows his work is needed and appreciated.
A lot of people have jobs that easily translate to a hobby, side business, or volunteer service, but the work he did isn't really hobby material. He's not interested in starting a business or working as a consultant either (Not even part time. I think he's done punching someone else's clock.)
In college he studied and excelled at math, science (physics, chemistry), and economics. He's always had an interest in computers, but never got involved in programming. One thing I thought of was open-source software development. I know if he was interested he'd be able to learn the language/tools easily, but I have no idea what projects to suggest to someone who is his age and completely new to software development.
Does anyone have any suggestions how a 72-year-old could get started with open-source software development? Does anyone think it would be a bad idea to get him involved in open-source software? Any other hobby suggestions?
Figure out some fun things you like to do when you’re young, and make the time to do them regularly. Get in the habit of doing weekend trips to go fishing or kite surfing or competitive bridge playing or whatever. Max out your vacation time doing so, and get a good set of friends in place who are just as passionate about bicycles or vintage trains or civil war re-enactment as you are. Spreading this work out over a lifetime will leave you in a much better place than trying to think up a hobby and find people to do it with in your 70’s. And you’ll be a lot more keen to retire as early as possible, knowing exactly how you’re going to fill all those new free hours.
A side effect of doing this is that you’ll live a lot more life while you’re young enough to enjoy it. And when you’re too old to spend the entire winter snowboarding anymore, you’ll still have a crew of friends to hang out with and talk about it.
Most of the things I like doing would make miserable, low paying, jobs. And even though my job of programming computers is the most fun thing anybody could ever pay a guy 3X what he deserved to do it, there are a lot of other things I’d rather be doing much of the time.
So my personal plan is to minimize the time doing Work and maximize the time spent doing Play. Or, put another way, “I like climbing, surfing, and traveling. So I write software for a living.”
That brings us to exercise, which is a great thing if you can enjoy it. Easy exercise, e.g. walking, shuffleboard, kite flying, billiards, ping pong, swimming, gently aerobic exercise machines, dancing, shuffleboard, golf, dog walking, frisbee, gardening, or just sharing simple activities with active younger relatives, are fine, and as little as 45 minutes on most days may be optimal.
I'm retired a few years and just a bit younger than your father, and I would spend 40 hours a week on those two kinds of activities except that my wife often direct otherwise, which I also enjoy considerably. Life is very good for me now. I have gotten rid of a vast majority of my programming and software books and almost eliminated programming activities entirely. The problem with programming is that if you like it, you always have a program that needs one more tweak, and that means that every day you will sit down much more than you expected to. Better to keep an active mind in an active body.
I was trying to come up with some ideas that were more than just idle consumption, like reading books or watching tv/movies because I imagine that will get old quickly. I was trying to think of less passive activities. He used to be a big pool player when he was younger and he said he might try to find some people to play pool with at a local pool hall, but he's had 48 years to do that and I think I can count on one hand the number of times he's gone out to play pool; so I'm a little skeptical that he'll do that. He's quite introverted and doesn't really look to get out much. In fact, he currently plays virtual pool online. But he only does that for about an hour a day and I don't think he'll want to fill entire days doing that. That's why I was looking for something maybe he can get involved in that he could do from home and would be both creative and challenging, e.g. open-source. I also thought doing something totally new might be fun for him.
He'd have more fun actually playing any kind of games. He has worked all his life, don't get me wrong, but why the hell would he now contribute to OSS?
If you like your father, get into miniature painting and historical wargaming with him.
I appreciate the suggestions. I'll add them to my list.
My opinion: it must be a social hobby. The solitary task of software development may be isolating. What retirees miss post-employment isn't the work. But the colleagues and "work family" they fostered over perhaps decades.
Creative Coding. Maker Scenes. Art Therapy. All proven beneficial. Can also segue into art collecting or angel investing or philanthropy as a second career.
This is an interesting space with lots of possibilities for solutions. Best of Luck ;)
In Australia we have clubs called 'mens shed' which is basically a community hall full of tools and retired blokes get together to chat and make stuff. That's always sounded good to me.
Search for local communities and clubs near you. And consider something he can do in another 10 years ongoing so they can keep at it with the same community.
That's a good idea. I'm going to suggest that. Thanks
In a more software development type idea, there is a guy that maintains http://excel1040.com, which is a free spreadsheet to calculate US personal income taxes. It doesn't handle everything, but it handles quite a bit and provides a version early in the year to estimate your taxes. Something like that for imports might be an interesting project for him.
For example I already know what I'm going to do after 20 years when I reach semi-retirement in late 50s. I'll probably start a retro video game streaming business and stream all those games from 55 years ago (that is from late 1980s and beyond if we count from 2040). I'll probably also start playing DND games seriously and stream that too if it's possible. I can also start publishing my own indie games and don't give a fuck about how much money I need to make becuase it is just fun to introduce some retro style games to young people then, many of whom have not been born yet.
But does this make sense to your father? I doubt.
Little human interaction, lots of toxicity from entitled developers.
Development could be a nice hobby but it's not easy on the eyes and doesn't make you move.
Get him into stretching / light fitness / bodyweight training: it can definitely become a passion / hobby and will keep him healthy (within limits)
Add to this a group called VATSIM which lets you interect with live air traffic controllers "ATC" and a very strong user base of simmers, and you have a truly magical experience.
Flight simming has social, technical, and aesthetic appeal. You can dig into the technical and legal aspects of aviation as much as you want or not at all.
Coding is an option but honestly the tools are all designed for people with good vision and a 20 year old's social context. The barrier to entry is high and one has to get past the jargon to feel any sense of community.
This type of volunteering is stressful but has extraordinary purpose. It remains one of my most meaningful life experiences.
It's like $100, and even if he doesn't want to continue flying sail planes it might awaken an interest in aerodynamics, and lead to model airplanes or RC planes or kite gliding or quadcopters. The last one could even lead to coding, but doesn't have to.
Chess is a great game, and there are often local clubs, can be played with family and friends etc. I don't think it's enough to really occupy him full time, but it helps take the edge off all that extra time.
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Personally I would recommend getting into scale modelling, either plastic or wood. Building a scale wooden ship is thrilling and fun and takes a few month to complete so it nicely fills up your time.
If you still want to have him try programming, give him something almost immediately useful, like the Automating The Boring Stuff With Python book.
forget jogging though -- heart attack waiting to happen
