Re-inventing the Self

I'm staring straight into the face of it again.  It seems to come around every few years during this very different time of life. This time with no full-time employment. Self-reinvention.  One of the benefits of living in the US of A is that we enjoy this luxury.  It often can be stimulating and risky. Som who will I be when I am no longer the person that did these things for so many years.  Who will I be when I haven't a clue what I'll be doing.  Or do I?
Every time I ask the question, the answer is always the same.  Wait and see.
When we lose the structure and routine we've complained about for so long we feel compelled to create a substitute.  For good reason.  Do you know how easy it is to waste a day?  Days?  even a year? Define waste.
OK, waste, as in accomplishing nothing.

I belong to the melting ice school of thought.  As Arthur Miller once noted, we are all trying to "write our name on a cake of ice on a hot July day."  No really.  We just do it in different ways.  In fact, just my writing this page, I'm participating.  It's a simple metaphor.  I write a sentence. Then another one follows.  And another.  I see where it goes.  That's the way to live life in the moment.  Give yourself the time and will to simply experience what will be as it will be.  Unless you are physically ill or incapable of functioning, you really have no complaint with anything.  Sounds too simplistic, but it requires action.  Requires you to become more than you currently are.  That can't be bad.
I suppose that there will soon be some new technology for self-reinvention.  Why not, we've got something for everything else.  Some sci-fi stories and TV shows are already exploring the many faces of transferring thoughts from one brain to another.  How to capture what's inside our heads without losing the poignancy or originality of a thought is quite fascinating.  Like this cartoon I saw earlier today.
If I had a built-in tape recorder or should I now say voice recorder to capture every thought-possibility that rolls through my brain then I'd be rich in thought.  I'd probably have a book or two of some of the best poems, short stories and short essays that I'm capable of producing.  No lament here.  The answer is to just do it myself.