Ask HN: What are some hobbies for a 72-year-old retiree? Maybe OSS?

My opinion: it must be a social hobby. The solitary task of software development may be isolating. What retirees miss post-employment isn't the work. But the colleagues and "work family" they fostered over perhaps decades.

Creative Coding. Maker Scenes. Art Therapy. All proven beneficial. Can also segue into art collecting or angel investing or philanthropy as a second career.

This is an interesting space with lots of possibilities for solutions. Best of Luck ;)

Most of the things I like doing would make miserable, low paying, jobs. And even though my job of programming computers is the most fun thing anybody could ever pay a guy 3X what he deserved to do it, there are a lot of other things I’d rather be doing much of the time.

So my personal plan is to minimize the time doing Work and maximize the time spent doing Play. Or, put another way, “I like climbing, surfing, and traveling. So I write software for a living.”

For example I already know what I'm going to do after 20 years when I reach semi-retirement in late 50s. I'll probably start a retro video game streaming business and stream all those games from 55 years ago (that is from late 1980s and beyond if we count from 2040). I'll probably also start playing DND games seriously and stream that too if it's possible. I can also start publishing my own indie games and don't give a fuck about how much money I need to make becuase it is just fun to introduce some retro style games to young people then, many of whom have not been born yet.

But does this make sense to your father? I doubt.