Skip to main content

The Great Un-Working

In this episode. 2026—The Year of the Great Un-Working

Welcome to On the Fly. If you’re new here, this is a place for noticing—the small, easily missed moments that quietly turn out to matter. It’s part reflection, part curiosity, and occasionally part grease-stained bicycle rag. If you’re searching for life hacks, hustle culture, or a seven-step plan to optimize your morning coffee, you may have taxied onto the wrong runway.

But if you’ve ever felt the itch to slow down and look around—welcome aboard.

We begin 2026 by analyzing the blog post below. Traditional resolutions are often just "re-work"—tasks we assign ourselves to become more efficient cogs. In the 2026 era of Un-Working, a resolution isn't a goal; it’s an unlearning.

Join Jim & Chloe, our AI analysis team, with the help of NotebookLM, as they unpack, explore, and expand on this blog post.

Happy 2026!

If you’re like us, you spent the last week of 2025 doing three things remarkably well: 

  1. Avoiding unfinished projects.
  2. Eating things wrapped in foil.
  3. Quietly wondering how procrastination still isn’t an Olympic sport.
    Then–the calendar flipped, the air sharpened, and the “R” word floated into view.

No—not Resolutions.

Retirement.

Or, as we prefer to think of it here at On the Fly:
The Great Life Re-Creation Project.

This year isn’t about stopping. It’s about un-working—setting down what no longer fits and picking up what we kept meaning to get back to. Less urgency. More intention. Fewer meetings. Better questions.

Here’s what that looks like as we start the year.

From PowerPoint to Power Chords.

For years, music was something other people did confidently.

In 2026, I’m leaning into finger-style guitar—nylon strings, quieter moods, fewer heroic flourishes—music not as performance, but as practice.

  • The Plan:
    Lessons at the local music store. Supporting local business—and removing my ability to claim I “meant to practice.”
  • The Goal:
    To play something soulful enough that the neighbors stop calling the authorities and start leaving tips on the porch.
  • The Reality Check:
    I’m aiming for Spanish Romance. I’ll settle for not snapping a high-E string and losing an eye.

Dusting Off the Universe

There’s a telescope in the garage.

If you’re new here, you should know this: On the Fly has a soft spot for forgotten tools—the ones we bought with BIG curiosity and then buried under real life.

January skies are clear, cold, and honest. Perfect for reminding us that our daily worries are statistically insignificant in the grand scheme of the Milky Way.

  • The Plan:
    Connect with the local Astronomy Club. Spend time with people who think Andromeda is a perfectly reasonable Saturday night topic.
  • The Goal:
    Locate a galaxy without an app thinking for me.
  • The Likely Outcome:
    Three hours in the cold before realizing I’ve been staring at a distant streetlamp again. Ha ha!

Grease, Gears, and Giving Back

Cycling has been part of my life since I was fourteen. Around here, bikes aren’t just transportation—they’re teachers.

This summer, On the Fly headquarters may transform into a small bicycle classroom.

  • The Plan:
    Teach local kids basic repairs: fixing flats, indexing derailleurs, and mastering the fine art of not tracking grease into the house.
  • The Goal:
    Every kid knows the difference between a tire iron and a screwdriver.
  • The Vibe:
    Exploring new horizons on two wheels—preferably without fixing twenty bikes at once while everyone eats my snacks.

The 2026 “Newly Idle” Reading List (Any suggestions?)

Because un-working takes practice:

  • How to Do Nothing — Jenny Odell
  • The Music Lesson — Victor Wooten
  • Astrophysics for People in a Hurry — Neil deGrasse Tyson

The universe is vast. For the first time in a while, we’re not rushing through it.

If You’re New Here, Start With These Questions

On the Fly isn’t about retirement.
It’s about reinvention at any age.

So let me ask you—directly:

What are you "un-working" on this year?
What habit, identity, or expectation has quietly expired?
What would you pick up if productivity weren’t the point?

A guitar. A telescope. A camera. A wrench. Or simply the habit of noticing.

Stop using AI like a search engine. Click here to see what happens when you treat it like a creative partner.

I’m Patrick Ball. Stay curious. Ask better questions: clear skies—and tailwinds.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most Popular of All Time

Morning Coffee

In this episode, Morning Coffee . . . Now, I’m not saying everyone needs coffee. Some folks get by just fine on, I don’t know, sunlight and positive thinking. Me? I’m pretty sure I started drinking the stuff sometime around the Reagan administration. Reading John Gierach’s "Ode to Campfire Coffee" in Trout Bum (a book that should be required reading for anyone who sees sleeping on the ground as recreation) got me thinking about how we’ve managed to complicate something as fundamentally simple as boiling water and adding grounds. Taste, you say? Look, black coffee is an acquired taste, like tequila or cilantro. I just don’t get it. Gierach, bless his heart, mostly drinks his java streamside, probably while wearing wool socks and waders and contemplating the mysteries of the universe. As for me? My outdoor coffee experience is a bit different. Picture this: the High Sierra, where campfires are banned (to avoid agitating Smoky Bear), and I’m huddled over a Whisperlite , coax...
1 comment
Read more

A B+ Kind of Life

Welcome back to this week's On the Fly . Retirement has taught me something unexpected: life gets a lot more enjoyable when you stop chasing perfection. Lately, I've been having an absolute blast playing executive par-3 courses like Rancho Carlsbad . A short iron, a sunny morning, and nowhere to be except the next tee—that's my kind of day. This Thursday, though, I'm raising the stakes. I'm heading to The Links at Lakehouse in San Marcos, a full-size par-71 course with enough water hazards to keep the local fish well-stocked with my golf balls. After shooting a 64 on a par-3 course, I've set myself a new goal: shoot an 89 before my birthday next August. Why 89? Because on a par-71 course, that's bogey golf—one extra stroke per hole. For non-golfers, think of it this way: par is like earning 100% on a final exam. Bogey golf is a solid B+. You got the job done, learned something, and probably had a lot more fun getting there. The older I get, the more I appre...
Post a Comment
Read more

Resurrecting the '90s Graphite

Let’s face it, there’s a certain danger in reading John Gierach's Trout Bum . His wit, self-deprecation, and sharp, effortless satire are entirely infectious. If you aren't careful, his words will inspire you to drop everything, wade into a freezing river, and try to outsmart a creature with a brain the size of a lentil. In my case, re-reading Gierach recently didn't send me straight to the river. It sent me digging through the dusty, spider-guarded corners of my garage. In the early 1990s, seeking a natural escape from Manhattan's concrete canyons, I decided to learn to cast a fly rod. I bought an Orvis Rocky Mountain —eight-and-a-half feet, three ounces, built for a five-weight line—and had absolutely no idea how to use it. To avoid aimlessly whipping the water like scrambling eggs, I took fly-fishing lessons from Al Cucci, co-author of Hatches , on the Delaware River. With his guidance, I fished renowned waters: the AuSable in New York and Michigan, and New Jersey...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Endless Work of Wisdom

It always makes me smile. The moment people learn I've officially entered what I like to call the Great Un-Working (retirement), they almost immediately ask the same question: “So . . . What do you do now?" I think they're expecting me to say I'm restoring a vintage sports car, hiking the John Muir Trail, or finally becoming fluent in French.   Instead, I tell them: "I live life deliberately." That's usually the point when I get a polite nod, followed by the unmistakable look of someone wondering whether I've simply found a more sophisticated way to say, “I’m becoming a bum.” Apparently, "living deliberately" sounds suspiciously like unemployment, just better branding. The truth is, what living deliberately looks like for me right now is taking time to synthesize a lifetime of experiences into these weekly reflections. It's slowing down long enough to ask what those experiences have taught me, while keeping the door wide open to the poss...
Post a Comment
Read more