Some days I'd like to take a very light motorcycle, perhaps even a scooter or a motor bike, tie on a very light sleeping bag and climber's tent.....and then just go out and see how far around the world I could get! But then... then.... I take another look at my lovely wife, and say to myself: "What's the matter, fool? Are you nuts? Already you are more fortunate than 99% of the world's population! Just lay back chilly and enjoy, you old fool, ....lay back and enjoy!"

In the western world, boredom is the greatest threat to an old man's happiness, and usually it's self-inflicted.....

But not always, sometimes it's spawned by advancing age. At seventy years plus and still suffering from the non-healed wounds he received during the Civil War, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the Hero of Little Roundtop, tried to get back into the Army for the Spanish American War, and was heartily pissed off when refused.... Why? Maybe bored, or maybe haunted by the approach of his mortality.... The more intense your life, the harder it is to see it ebbing away....