Atheletes retire. Rather, elite atheletes retire. For the rest, usually retirement is forced onto them. 

Even amongst those, there is a subset of elite atheletes who retire on their terms. Within that set, there is an even smaller set who mention that they could feel it was the end of the road and hence they left. 

I have always been curious about that phrase. End of the road. How does end of the road feel? Literally speaking, time must be a function in the end-of-the-road equation, and everyone does reach end of the road ie:death. but to feel that feeling with a craft that has been the major pursuit of life must be a feeling on a whole other scale. 

Just the other day i realized as i have grown older, i am now at a point where i can legit claim that the craft of software engineering has consumed majority of my life till now. And lately, with AI killing the craft of coding , it does feel a bit empty. Off course, there are many other aspects of software engineering other than coding itself. And there is the euphoria of shipping (or building as they say). But frankly, other than the coding part, the rest of it doesnt feel like a craft. I no longer feel like an artist (however inferior), but rather feel like a lean mean machine (again, however inferior) when i code using agents. 

It lead me to wonder does this feel like end of the road. Emptyness. I dont think so -- simply from the fact that the feeling cant be a negative one. Is this a negative feeling ?  Very tough to say. Its a feeling , but i cant label it. Its not uncertainty or the feeling of being lost -- those are fight-or-flight kind of heightened adrenalin feeling. This is definitely not a happy feeling, but not a sad feeling either. This is not the feeling of being burnt out. This is not like feeling ice cold wind on my face. 

If I ever get a chance, I for sure would like to speak to one of these atheletes and just understand what is the end of the road feeling -- is it bliss, is it ennui, is it being sated ?? Who knows. 

Date: 2026-03-02