I know several people who really enjoyed/are enjoying their retirements without feeling this inner emptiness and feeling of being lost. I think you're generalizing to all humans from your individual experience when it is not the general rule.
The point is Malthus was very popular in his day and his predictions appeared iron clad, just like predictions about population collapse seem to be today. Many countries enacted population control programs due to his influence.
Reality often has a funny way of evading predictions.
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