Pro-tip: party with people who also love cleaning up at 7am.

This article on a Margaritaville-themed retirement community makes for an easy-to-smirk-at headline, but raises a lot of interesting questions if you bother clicking through. We’re about to have a massive aging population who aren’t going to quietly get consigned to traditional senior living. Our whole conception of seniors and their role in society — especially as they live longer and longer — is weird and undefined and in flux.

But on the matter of themed retirement communities this… actually sounds kinda fun? And even for those of us who have no particular fondness for Jimmy Buffet, it’s useful to think of what’s really important as we age and what the ideal scenario in which to spend our golden years might be.

What would your ideal retirement community look like?

What kind of space, what kind of people, what kind of activities would make your later years the most enjoyable? Where would it be? What would its theme or name be?

Corona-ad-style trips look like paradise during the week, but getting trapped in one forever would be a little bit like hell, wouldn’t it?

Last weekend I was on vacation, and I have very few good vacation stories or photos, because it was intentionally more of a “do nothing”-style vacation. No adventures, no excursions, no tourist destinations, not even very many activities. Sometimes, that’s nice.

But on the last day I had a vacation-induced thought: sitting around doing nothing is ‘relaxing’ after a busy or stressful work period, but doing nothing for too long would surely drive a person crazy in the end. Without much purpose or any concrete goals or productivity, doesn’t life quickly become empty?

Let’s say “doing nothing” has a few boundaries: you can do vacation-type things like play games, read books or magazines, eat and drink or even go to bars or clubs or restaurants. But once you do anything that could be considered work, or productive, you’re not “doing nothing” any more. So no writing, creating, building. Even gardening or decorating or demanding chores are off limits. In this scenario you’re not fantastically wealthy but you’re wealthy enough not to worry and to have a well-above-average lifestyle and budget. You can be wherever you want, but you have to stay there: traveling to a new place every day is too much of an adventure, and wouldn’t count as “doing nothing”. So.

How long do you think you could go doing essentially nothing?

What would you fill your time with in order to “do nothing” for as long as possible?

What people could you do nothing with the longest?

What about doing nothing, specifically, would eventually drive you nuts?