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This is a breath of fresh air. I was born the same year as the author so I'm nearing 45. I'm so glad to hear that you retired and then continued to work on software projects you love.

I adopted a lot of things earlier than OP, thanks to my Mom, who purchased my first computer, a used Tandy CoCo 64K when I was just 10 years old. Thanks Mom.

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It's absolutely incredible to think that the age difference between you and the author of the comment you replied to is greater than the number of years I've been alive.

I had a similar moment this morning while reading a book to my son. I told him "You remember this book? Your grandmother got this book for you when you were 10 months old, less than half your current age."

And it just occurred to me that my son's entire lifetime is less than half the time I've been married to my wife. The time I've been married to my wife is less than half the time I've lived in the Bay Area. The time I've lived in the Bay Area is less than a third of my total lifetime.

We all live multiple lifetimes. Some moments just remind us of that more than others.

You'll really have your mind blown reading the history of the early earth then. For a couple hundred million years, there was no liquid water. A few hundred million years after that, single celled life appeared. It took yet another few hundred million years for there to be any oxygen in the atmosphere. Fast forward another 3500 million years for something resembling modern humans to appear, a few hundred thousand years ago. Recorded history is only about 5000 years. So, if you live to 100 years old, you will have been around for 2% of recorded history but only 0.000002% as long as the earth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_evolutionary_h...

Why is that absolutely incredible?

The wording of the original author may have been imprecise, but I’m in a similar place so I’ll try to translate my feelings as well.

It is a certain form of awe, to realise that one’s life so far will likely just be a small fragment of the whole. It isn’t intuitive aside from mathematically — it is a thought that only at a certain age becomes apparent and then drifts off to be forgotten again.

Realising that the journey is so much longer, it both storms and calms the soul. The calm from the meditative “I still have time to become”, the storm from a similar “But I only have time to become”.

Beautiful clarification

Maybe it's a personality thing? When I retire I plan to put my computer and my cell phone in a box and then bury it in the ground.

When I was young I never quite understood why old fogies would spend so much time working on their roses and hanging out with their grand kids. Now I get it.

you should do what you love today, don't wait