This clarification made me even MORE confused!
Because I make $0.00 at my hobby, I'm not retired? :)
In Retirement Bizarro World, MMM is retired while making $400k/yr from his hobby, and you are still slaving away at your moderator job, which would probably literally pay peanuts (or almonds or whatever nut was on sale that month) if you stopped by the "corporate office" in Colorado for a beer and a snack.
This concept is so central to mustachianism that it's difficult to see why anyone on this forum could dispute it. According to Merriam-Webster, "retired" does not mean
does nothing for renumeration. It means "withdrawn from one's position or occupation: having concluded one's working or professional career."
MMM's career was programming. He doesn't do that any more. He's retired.
Conversely, "hobby" doesn't mean
something you don't get paid for, it means "an interest or activity engaged in for pleasure."
MMM has fixed up houses, and written a blog post or two. But
you can't hire him to do either. He'll do them when he wants and where he wants, and only to the proportion that he finds it pleasurable. They are hobbies.
I retired in 1999, at the age of 37. Since then, everything I've done has been motived by what I find enjoyable and rewarding. Have these activities made money for me? Some of them: yes, indeed. Did I do them FOR the money, or out of NEED for money? Nope.
The narrow (and linguistically incorrect) definition of "retirement" almost willfully ignores the heart of what MMM is trying to convey, namely that "retirement" can convey a long and busy phase of one's life; it's not just death's waiting room. In fact, there's even a post entitled "Early Retirement Doesn't Mean You'll Stop Working":
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/04/15/great-news-early-retirement-doesnt-mean-youll-stop-working/.