A familiar urge in retirement is to make sense of one’s time. Who were we, in hindsight? What were our choices? How much were we the product of our moment, how much its producer? What did we achieve?

My inquiry tends to be curious, not rueful. Young, at one’s career’s cusp, we imagine free agency in a world so wide. We could be anything we wanted if we set our mind to it. Such encouragement is nonsense, of course. Our choices are not a plethora but few, limited by circumstance, temperament, accident. Like a jigsaw puzzle piece, we must snug into our adjacencies or end up a misfit, which is hard and sad.

I spent my career in journalism, dispersing information initially on paper, later online. I made publications that readers might be convinced to purchase, and businesses to advertise in, in pursuit of those readers. Wouldn’t there always be newspapers and magazines? There always had been, for several centuries at least, what could change?

My focus was rearward, imitative; I wanted to resemble respected predecessors. I learned the tricks of my trade – how to report, sell, manage, finance, turn a profit (mostly). No technophile, I did not foresee the Internet; if I had, what could I have done about it? My gift, if any, lay with words and notions, not the machinations of machines.

Looking back, I selected my career from a handful conceivable. By reason of temperament, I’d never have been a lawyer, doctor, engineer, money guy, politician, preacher. Talent precluded composing music, wooing from the stage, or winning Wimbledon. Words would be my dance partner – and have their way with me.

Ours has been a rough half century for words. They still abound – more than ever – but demoted to the status of “content,” information bearers, sullen servants to electronic signals. We would always need words – at least until science relieved us from speaking – but not always the art of words. Art implies originality, a unique vivacity, teasing delight from one’s medium. AI knows no magic: its humorless obsession is efficiency, get the job done – briskly, cleanly, no monkey business. Art, one might argue, is nothing but monkey business.

My career melted under me, slowly at first, then like butter in a pan. Who needed to compose headlines or count words anymore? A machine would do it – briskly, cleanly. Who needed to sell advertising? Machines do it, by talking to machines – no ifs, buts, or blarney. More and more, making print publications became an esoteric, antiquarian, unremunerative line of work, an anchorage for enthusiasts perhaps, but no prize for avid ambition.

I adjusted to the changes in my work, as one must, no pioneer, but no suicidal fuddy-duddy either. These days I can scarcely comprehend the lingo of my former occupation, things have changed so. I’m happy in the backwater of literary striving – never more – only bemused by my obsolescence.

I’ve heard of oldsters sighing for the good old days. I feel none of that. I’m grateful for the dizzying rapidity of change; it exonerates, relieves me of responsibility for my scant accomplishment. The world is evolving so fast, it’s all one can do to hold on. Who circa 1973 could have foreseen 2025 with confidence? My present inconsequence frees me to say what I see and gambol with language as I please. It is peaceful here in my aery, the breezes are mild.

Hindsight dwindles self-importance. What solace! No longer a competitor, I am companionably one with my kind. I did not make my world, my world made me. I coped. That seems more than enough.