It pleases me to no end that you literally said this before saying two things, exactly. We should normalize this.
1) You should probably never reach enough to ever 'retire'. At least not when you look at movies through the lens I do. Art is as much about how much it shapes you as a person as you grow older, and films will mean different things to you at different phases of your life. And sohopefully, one never stops needing them to continue informing them of all the different ways we can think and feel. Of all the different ways it can make us look at the world. Their value is inexhaustible.
Especially because so many of them will look different later. Undoubtedly there are things in youth that will seem overly sentimental or maudlin or whatever that will land just right on the back half of life.
2) Films aren't a substitute for life, and so I believe it's always best to have a balance between private times with movies, and then putting yourself back out into the world. I've had different phases where I've needed more of one than the other, and sometimes, maybe neglected one over the other. Which is fine, for stretches. But hopefully there is no need to get to a point when you are shunning the world outside for movies. The movies will always be there when you get home.
This. It's a tough thing to say because this is a movie forum, so it's already self-selected for people who get really, really into film, to the point of watching then more than 'living' for lack of a better encompassing term. But it really is necessary.
Weird example, but after I got in a major car crash many years ago, car crashes in TV and film hit very differently. Growing up they were just another event in the story. Now they add genuine tension. The same goes for love, loss, or anything else that can stand-in for a lived experience in some way. Those experiences also allow for further connection with things that haven't happened to me, or are amplified versions of it. What's that Stephen King quote? "Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around."
Not only that, but part of the value of art is sharing it with others. Talking about it. And while I obviously am happy to recommend doing that online, it's still really nice to do in person, when you get the chance. I can't tell you how many times people have said, of this place, that it helped them specifically because it was hard to find people near them offline to talk seriously about film with, and that warms my heart. But they had the right idea in trying to do that first.
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