Ignoring the pedants who miss the point of this and waffle on irrelevantly about lifelong learning (yes, that is a thing, but it is not the primary focus throughout life - and if you claim lifelong learning is, you better be single and without kids), I can see the legitimacy of an initial phase focused more on learning than other aspects of life - although there are other aspects, and significant parts of the learning are not academic.
The next two listed phases are ridiculous. For a start, women don't serve as soldiers and have kids at 40 - this was clearly written from a patriarchal point of view.
However, there are two ideas here:
- service towards the broader community in some way (and that can possibly be through ethical business); and
- service towards one's personal community - family and friends.
However, once one's kids are adults, the emphasis should switch back out to the broader community - including the entire community of humanity.
And at that time, it may well be that one's focus moves more from the physical to the spiritual, which encompasses the community of life.
I'm a little past the time ascribed to starting the focus on being "a mystic" (the term might have been along the lines of spiritual person - I cannot be bothered trying to find the original short story), but then I've been strongly focused on spiritual matters throughout my life anyway.
Nevertheless, I'm very drawn to the idea of withdrawing from mundane life. I can't - I have a family to continue supporting, I have no savings to speak of, and our retirement age keeps moving away into the distance.
Short of winning a lottery (and I don't normally buy tickets), this must remain a dream - unless someone wants to hire a hermit for their garden, as rich people used to do? I'm feeling quite partial to a log cabin (not in a fireproof zone!) at the moment . . . ☺
And now I'll get back to everyday life.
