July was a month of writing, reflection and beginning to question the pace.
For several months now, I’ve been publishing on Substack four times a week.
By July, that rhythm had become almost normal. A Monday article, a paid reflection on Tuesday, another piece later in the week, and usually something more cultural or personal at the weekend.
Looking back at the month, I’m slightly astonished by how much I wrote.
But what interests me more is what I was writing about.
Again and again, I found myself returning to questions about rest, productivity, solitude, identity and what happens when we stop measuring ourselves by how much we achieve.
Perhaps the writing was telling me something before I was quite ready to hear it.
Themes in My July Writing
July included pieces about ageing and identity, but also a growing interest in what lies beyond the familiar language of retirement and purpose.
I wrote about leaving the retirement conversation behind in [From Purpose to What Matters Now], and about the gradual process of learning simply to be rather than constantly doing.
Other pieces explored solitude, reflection, endings, fun and the question of when we actually begin to think of ourselves as old.
There were also more personal pieces: thoughts about my new kitchen, reflections on writing and publishing, and the continuing discovery that ordinary experiences often lead me towards much bigger questions.
My regular 52 Reflections on Later Life series also continued throughout the month, including reflections on rest, endings, silence and becoming kinder towards earlier versions of ourselves.
And, as always, there was room for culture. Films, television, books and even football often give me another way into the questions I’m interested in.
Representative pieces included:
- From Purpose to What Matters Now
- The Wisdom of Choosing Rest
- When Did Rest Become Something We Have to Earn?
- The People Who Need Solitude Most
- Does Our Worth Depend on Productivity?
- Learning to Be
- When Do We Become Old?
- When Did We Stop Having Fun?
- Some Questions Need Silence
- When the Ending Stops Being the Whole Story
- Why Am I Worrying About a Kitchen?
- The Beautiful Game
- Welcome Home: What Je m’appelle Agneta Reminded Me About Becoming Yourself
Writing Four Times a Week
One thing July made very visible was just how much I have been producing.
Four articles a week does not sound enormous when each one is considered separately. But over weeks and months it becomes a substantial body of work.
I’ve enjoyed it. I like writing, and Substack has given me somewhere to think in public about ideas that matter to me.
But I’m also becoming more aware of the irony of writing repeatedly about rest, spaciousness and stepping away from productivity while maintaining a fairly relentless publishing schedule myself.
There may be something worth paying attention to there.
ThriveSpan and What Came Afterwards
July was also the first full month after the publication of ThriveSpan.
The intense period of getting the book ready was over, but the conversations arising from it continued through interviews, media coverage and responses from readers.
Perhaps inevitably, publishing the book also shifted something in my thinking.
I have spent years talking and writing about retirement, purpose and later-life transitions. Increasingly, though, I find myself less interested in helping people construct another highly productive version of later life and more interested in a simpler question:
What matters now?
That question seems to be appearing everywhere in my work.
Looking Ahead
By the end of July, I had written a great deal.
But I was also beginning to recognise that constantly producing something new is not necessarily the same as allowing ideas to deepen.
August may therefore look a little different.
There are times for writing and sharing.
And there are times for going quiet, living a little more slowly, and seeing what emerges.
I think I’m ready for some of the latter.
