One thing we've lost in the transition to two-earner families with the expectation that everyone has a career is exactly what's coming up in this thread:
1) People derive a lot of meaning from their interactions with other people.
2) For most people (at least, most people reading blogs like this) today, that meaning comes from employment, from the exchange of time for money in the service of others.
But pre-television, and in many parts of the world still today, people gather socially for many reasons other than the strict definition of work above.
The rat in the race doesn't know what to do when the race is over, because all the other rats are still in the race, and he's never been outside before.
The list in this post is about how to make the outside world look like the race you just left: Do things! Find people to do them with! Get out of your comfort zone!
These are mechanisms for people without strong social and community ties to fill their time.
I would encourage anyone in this situation to consider what aspects of their prior race-like lives they would like to lose first, and to find communities they would like to belong to. Some of those many be activity-oriented, and there's nothing wrong with that, but they don't have to be interesting activities.