Is it a necessary mindset or disposition—one of constant critique, pessimism, sarcasm, and overall malcontent—that drives one eventually towards either the spiritual or therapy path (or both)? How long is one capable of holding onto such a dissentient inner voice before finally giving up and submitting to a higher calling or “power”? Ultimately, you have to crawl out of your own selfishness to experience anything beyond negativity. Although judging from some of the supposed righteousness I observe all around me here in this retirement community of Naples, Florida, it seems that it’s a common lifestyle, unsettling as it might seem. Perhaps having lived here for nearly three years was necessary for me to see what I might become if I don’t change my ways. Hopefully, my upcoming move to Catskill, New York will offer some inspiration.

But changing behaviors becomes increasingly difficult as we age. I’m no different. I hold onto far too many vices and bad habits that to rid myself of them entirely seems too often and too much of a literal headache, especially with coffee. There’s nothing that makes me more anxious nor ecstatic than coffee. Internet surfing is one that I could certainly decrease. This morning, I went to the beach and left my phone behind in the car along with half of my iced Americano so as to have a little treat when I returned. I attempted to fish for some snook, however, the conditions were less than favorable. I walked up to the sand and turned back since it was too windy, the waves were too large, and it had just begun to drizzle.

I ran into another angler on my way back to the parking lot. “Catch anything?” he asked. That’s usually what most anglers and the general public ask when they see you with rod in hand. And the general public, most of them at least, don’t even know what you might be fishing for. In fairness, when it comes to lakes and oceans, I mostly don’t even know what I might catch. I never fish lakes and in the ocean, I’ve only been fishing for snook and tarpon, which doesn’t mean I won’t accidentally land something else entirely.

The man added, “Can you surf the fish?” In other words, fishing along the shore and in this case, casting into the surf zone where the waves might push baitfish. There is no end to shorthand and often overly complicated ways of saying something I’ve found in the sport. My favorites, while not exactly jargon, are all of the fishing lines tied together in fly fishing: backing line, fly line, leader, and tippet. It seems a little excessive but what can you do? I’ve been meaning to pick up a tenkara rod, a type of fly fishing that’s been gaining in popularity and originated in Japan in the 1600s. It uses a rod, historically bamboo, a line, and a fly. That’s it. The fly is tied with a reverse hackle—the feathers that are made to look like wings—so as to pulse in the current to attract fish. I’ve read that tenkara anglers only use a single fly for the day as well which makes for a far more simplistic and challenging day on the water.

This past month, I brought together two old friends for a fly-fishing trip to Sedona, Arizona. That’s more or less what I’ve been doing for about these last twenty-something years: bro visits. Most of my close friends are in the same life-boat (not lifeboat, although really, is it not all some desperate cry for help where each one of us should in fact be evacuated in case of an impending disaster?). We are none of us affianced, have no parturient partners, and until recently, most of us are not mortgagors. Most of us bear little responsibility other than trying to get the most out of life and even then, all of us seem to be losing strength.

I was a little hesitant to bring the two together since they have what I thought were very different political beliefs and hobbies. One is into guns, cars, conspiracy theories, and frozen foods. The other, surfing, meditation, kratom, and everything organic. However, where they overlap is with girls. In fact, since we all went to the same undergraduate university in western Massachusetts, we learned on the car ride from the airport that they had almost overlapped with the same girl. It seemed to be going swimmingly.

The first night, we ate burgers and drank beers, the theme for every fishing trip. The second night, we barbecued, smoked cigars, and sipped on bourbon. Early on Friday morning, we drove to Sedona, arrived, and fished for a few hours. I caught four fish off the bat in the same hole. The others, none. The fishing is nothing short of remarkable, fish or no fish, with its surroundings of red sandstone formations as high as seven thousand feet. There are juniper, cypress, and sycamore trees; javelinas and bobcats on the prowl; a handful of rattlesnake and cactus species; and a single creek, Oak Creek, running through the town.

That evening again, we dined and we drank. We ate fish and chips from the Sedona Food Truck and drank IPAs at Mooney's Irish Pub and Oak Creek Brewery. And then, we attempted to sleep well, something that has become trickier over time, what with all of the eating out and drinking too much. But we push on in hopes that we can still pretend we’re young and hopefully not kill one another from sleep deprivation and general irritability.

On Saturday, we fished under a bridge in town—alongside a few homeless dudes—unsuccessfully and then moved up to our honeypot, Grasshopper Point, where I caught a sizeable brown trout that snapped off at the last second. That was to be the final potential catch for the rest of the weekend. We drove up next to Bootlegger Picnic Area and fished until the evening before it was time for our dinner reservation at Molé near our hotel. We ordered indulgently—iron skillet cornbread, pork chicharron, bone marrow elote, pozole, skirt steak with green guacachile salsa, and lamb shank with ancho chile mole. Thankfully, we were too tired for drinks afterward so we each called it a night, hoping for a movie (Rush Hour 3 or whatever), and were early to bed.

There was a third day with more fishless fishing followed by an exploration of Jerome for an hour or so. Jerome is a tiny hilltop town, supposedly haunted, with a few dive bars, a brewery, a wine-tasting room, art galleries, and a Cornish pasty shop. Along the way (and throughout the entire weekend in fact), I had been going on about sarcasm and ball-busting, how I was tired of the way old friends, especially those of us from the northeast, talk to one another. There hadn’t been any fights, differences, or annoyances per se. The only one really who was ball-busting, it turned out, was me.

One of them later wrote: “It was interesting to listen to you go on about ball-busting the whole weekend. You instigated the whole thing and yet, you were the only one doing it.” On our drive back to Phoenix airport, we dropped our California friend off and I decided to take a hotel room downtown for my remaining nights. I was desperate for some alone time, something I was both ashamed of and overwhelmingly eager for. There was a lesson to be learned I figured, one I would learn in a few days time or maybe never. At first, it seemed that I should limit my time with friends, which does seem true enough. However later, that I should probably spare my friends with too much time with me: an aging, grumpy, ball-busting, and overly critical Florida man, living a somewhat retired life.