The Quiet Beyond the Clearing

On the far side of ambition

Photo by Joel Holland

I’m not sure when it began, this gentle retreat from the things I once loved.

Earlier in life I juggled many pursuits. Martial arts. Cartooning. Landscape painting. Piano. Singing. Writing. Each called to me in its own time, and I followed. Some passions lasted years, others faded like the tide withdrawing from the shore.

And there were things I collected. Fountain pens. Leather satchels. Pochade boxes. Rangefinder cameras and their lenses. They brought pleasure until they didn’t.

Then something changed.

Clutter began to irritate me. Technology, with its endless choices and ceaseless noise, wearied me. Social media, with its hollow affirmations and comment threads spiraling into nothing, drained me.

Bright lights, loud restaurants, and crowded rooms made me restless. I wasn’t agoraphobic, nor on the spectrum. I simply reached a point where I wanted to be free of the world’s excess.

I longed for simplicity.

Retirement helped. Twenty-six years in law enforcement, the last ten as chief of police, had taken their toll. Meetings. City council nights. Community events. The ceaseless strain of budgets, politics, and responsibility.

I could perform when needed. I could smile and shake hands, make speeches, work a room, and stay until the folding tables were put away. But beneath it all the introvert in me was exhausted.

So I left five years before my pension would peak. I wanted a creative life.

At first the freedom was exhilarating. We moved to another state, started fresh. I painted, drew cartoons, wrote essays. My work flourished online and the income followed.

But life shifts.

Loved ones died. Small health troubles stole my energy. Interests changed shape.

We sold the large house with its pool and endless upkeep. Found a smaller place with better light, and a view that felt like serenity. I gave away what I didn’t need. Painting gear boxed in the garage. Wardrobe pared down to simplicity.

My world narrowed to books, writing, and the quiet pleasure of a camera in hand.

Even with those I love, I found myself turning away from the endless scroll of social media. I have no interest in who owns what, or who has gone where. I care only for what moves people inwardly, their thoughts, their wonder, their ache. Yet even there, a certain stillness lingers.

What do you do when you lose interest in everything?

I don’t think it’s depression. It feels different. Not sorrow, but a kind of maturity. As if childhood has ended, and I’ve walked out of the woods into a clearing where the air is still and everything waits. I don’t know what comes next.

Only that it feels necessary.

A video I watched (above) spoke to this feeling. The narrator said:

“So if you feel like nothing excites you right now, don’t rush to fix it. Sit with it. Let it shape you. Because the moment you surrender to it, your new chapter quietly opens.”

Someone commented beneath the video:

“I retired four months ago. Now that I can do whatever I want, I feel this happening. Peace and quiet are wonderful. I hate crowds, parties, stadiums, anywhere there are people. I don’t feel empty. I just don’t want attention. None.”

I understand that.

I used to like parties. Now I find them work. The chatter, the laughter, the small performances we all give. I sit back, watch, think how I’d rather be home reading. When enough time has passed, I slip away.

Do it often enough and the invitations stop. People assume you’ve grown distant or proud. But it isn’t that. Something inside you is changing. Your old self is falling away, and the silence it leaves feels both strange and holy.

When I was a boy my Irish grandmother would sit on a wooden bench at the park while I played. “Go on,” she’d say. “It’s a grand day.”

I’d swing high, climb the fire engine, tumble in the sand. “Look at me,” I’d call, and she’d smile without words. I remember wondering why old people just sat there, when there was so much to explore.

Eventually I’d tire and join her. She’d hand me apple juice and a napkin of cookies from her purse. I’d sit beside her, breathing hard, and watch the breeze lift her gray hair. Her hands folded gently in her lap, thumbs twiddling as she looked out across the green lawns and trees.

She was so still.

And now, I think I understand that stillness. It isn’t boredom. It’s peace. The kind that comes when ambition and comparison have burned themselves out, and life no longer needs to prove itself.

What do you do when you lose interest in everything?

You let go. You stop fighting the current. You listen for what remains.

If the garden calls, go to it. If a book waits on the table, open it. If a stranger speaks kindly in a café, linger.

For me, it is books and writing. Solitude and the gentle company of my dog. Morning coffee in the backyard, the cat stretched in sunlight. A novel slowly taking shape on the page.

I don’t know where any of it leads. But that’s alright.

Because when I grow uncertain, I close my eyes and see my grandmother again on that park bench, smiling, the wind soft through her hair.

And I know I will be alright.

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