A Country for Old Men
Having reached the shores of seniority himself, the author finds a surprising contentment in the eyes of his fellow retirees
接近老年 reach the shores of seniority
发现。。。认为。。。find...in the eyes of ...
退休的人retirees
作者 ：By Edward Hoagland
More and more I’ve been concluding that by middle age most people in this country have sculpted their lives so they’ll land about where they aimed to.
(在这个国家)很多人在中年的时候就已经把自己的生命雕刻成形，所以他们很快到达自己既定的目的地。
注意本句子中by...后面主句是将来时间，完成状态
The few who genuinely aspired to be rich or famous will probably become so for a spell, and those who wished for comfortable stability will find themselves with tradecraft competence, a web of friendships, grandchildren.
少数真正梦想发财成名的人会成功一阵子，而那些希望过着安逸稳定生活的人就会发现自己子孙满堂，(无所事事，就上网，于是就)具备侦探一样的技术能力，(用这种技术能力)有一堆网友。
括号内的增添内容，是我根据原文增补的，这样似乎更容易理解。
The pleasures of versatility are their own reward for “well-rounded” folk, much like committing a couple of decades to the responsibilities of raising kids.
花上几十年养儿育女
versatility 灵活多样
well-rounded folk 多样的民族
You acquire traction and smile lines, with perhaps a well-grooved marital banter.
这个句子的翻译我没有谱。不好理解well-grooved marital banter是什么意思，不熟悉语言的文化场景)
Two by two, Noah’s Ark is said to have been boarded—pairings being the easiest equation for many of us to handle, after all.
And in an era of chaotic governance and commonplace mendacity and meltdown, the ambition to excel seems a bit stunted. Hoe your own row is more the message than grabbing for a brass ring, though self-expression can become as crosswise as the old children’s game of pick-up sticks. While the country splits, compounding its fractures left to right, we accommodate ourselves to zany loads of debt, outlandish overcrowding—trading trains for planes, for example, till both are drastically less fun and the roads alternatively an anthill, as blue-collar as well as white-collar families look for a hideaway, a second home.
In pick-up sticks the player plucks colored sticks singly from a pile of 40 dropped helter-skelter on the table, down to the last, but without ever displacing any he isn’t immediately after; if he does, the other player takes over, himself attempting to score. It resembles negotiating traffic, or the ballet of the sidewalk, threading throngs. Pedestrians finesse potential collisions by swinging slightly sideways, smiling distantly, parting the phalanx by body-language adjustments. There’s nature; and then for phenomena like crowds, our second nature.