You can live disconnected, while still participating occasionally in the labor market.<p>Lifetime jobs at a single employer died in roughly my grandpa&#x27;s generation.  And I&#x27;m not that young.  My father went into semi-retirement in the 90s and he RVed roughly all summer and due to lack of connectivity technology at that time, he only contracted in the winter unless it was an emergency (charged higher rate!).  RV life is a lot simpler with a house and mailing address.  I spent a lot of time in the 90s and 00s picking up my parent&#x27;s mail and generally keeping an eye on their house, which wasn&#x27;t so bad because they lived kinda between my house and my work at that time, once I had kids it was more of a hassle but I still made the time.  I remember how creepy it was watching 9&#x2F;11 coverage on their big TV when they were in some campground a thousand miles away, wondering if this is &quot;the big one&quot; and should they be packing up to come here or should I be packing up to join them?!  Also when you get too old&#x2F;sick you just move back into the house permanently, or take shorter RV trips anyway.<p>Anyway, in summary, a home base strategy with &quot;far less than full time employment&quot; works pretty well, and if you&#x27;re going to have &quot;far less than full time employment&quot; you need to do something with your spare time between work, and some folks like to travel and camp in their extensive spare time.  So you end up with people disconnected and wandering the earth, most of the time, yet occasionally slaving away 9-5.  For my dad it was voluntary in a semi-retired state of being, but mere education and talent do not guarantee employment for anyone, so I&#x27;m sure for some its involuntary.  I suspect most of humanity in the history of our species never had a job, or never had a 9-5 job, they had a life instead.<p>My grandfather never completely stopped working into his 80s... I don&#x27;t have any elderly role model to show me how to retire and do nothing.  Personally when I retire I&#x27;m going back for the chemistry degree I always wanted and who cares if there&#x27;s no jobs... after all, I&#x27;m already retired!