I have to do more than imagine since there is always an outward pressure on my cohort to get off the payroll, maybe to come back as a lower-paid contractors. There is still the matter of being able to take out from the systems into which I've been paying for over forty years. That is a few years off unless it gets pushed even farther off which is a distinct possibility.

For most of us, financial resources are finite and the cost of existing in America - let alone living, let alone thriving - is out of reach for most. My job (technical field) was considered high paying and high skilled at one time in the not-so-distant past. My salary would now be considered entry level for tech people as defined by the HN community. This will not improve with time and the Ferengification of the society in which I was raised and educated. Every other place in the world is sliding down at an equal or faster rate so there is no outlet. Hobbies, passion projects, and service are all well and good in the abstract but many do miss the mental exercise from a job with infrastructure, equipment, and people.

Tithonus, without his knowledge, was granted eternal life without eternal youth. The modern horror, at least in the US, is outliving your savings.