Category Archives: Fearless Aging

Fearless Aging

Trashing Tiger

By Jim Selman | Bio

I have not spent any time at all reading, watching or listening to the media about what are euphemistically referred to as Tiger Wood’s “transgressions”. I haven’t had to: it seems to be on every channel, and the ‘talk of the town’ wherever I go. Whatever the pain and anguish this is causing him and his family, it is disgusting for our voyeuristic nation to be so fixated on what, at the end of the day, have been human foibles for centuries and are commonplace in many parts of the world. I know that celebrity-watching is becoming a growth industry, but have we ever considered why?

We seem to put our heroes on pedestals one day and then begin to systematically destroy them the next.  None of us are Saints. If we don’t keep our agreements and commitments, we will pay the consequences. But we should be relating to this and stories like it with at least some compassion, rather than self-righteously deciding who is the villain and who is the victim and dramatizing what already is a tragedy into a public spectacle.

I understand that public figures must

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Fearless Aging

Aging through a Physician’s Lens

For the past 20 years, Dr. Jeffrey Levine has photographed elders in his medical practice and across the U.S. His photos have been published in many medical journals and textbooks. This Thursday, he will be giving a lecture at the opening of his photography exhibition, Aging Through a Physician’s Lens, in New York at the NY Academy of Medicine (1216 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street). The exhibit will be open for viewing from 5 to 7 pm and his one-hour lecture begins at 7.

The exhibit, which

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Fearless Aging

Changing the World

By Jim Selman | Bio

In a recent New York Times op-ed column, Bob Herbert challenged all of us to get down out of the bleachers and take on at least one of today’s intractable problems. He pointed to the courage of many Civil Rights activists in the ’60s and ’70s, including Andrew Goodman who was murdered by the KKK and of course Rosa Parks. We remember these individuals and many like them because, like revolutionaries everywhere, they put their lives on the line for something worth dying for. They stood ‘in front of the tanks’ in Tiananmen Square; they faced British soldiers in India; they campaigned for unions when children were dying in sweatshops in America; they managed ‘underground railroads’ during the US Civil War, World War II and the ‘dirty wars’ of South America in the 1970s and 1980s; they are fighting today for the environment against oligarchs and big corporations; and they are the last line of defense against wholesale corruption and greed in many parts of the world.  Collectively, we call them ‘activists’ because they operate within the rule of law, but without relinquishing their commitment to change.

“Activism” is the penultimate resort to bringing about change when people lack the power to make policy—a form of non-violent war to change a system from within the system. One activist strategy might be some form of insurgency where the only goal is to destroy the status quo without any real vision for change and very little possibility for success. Another is to physically stand between the oppressors and the oppressed. The real power of activism, however, lies not in

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Fearless Aging

Giving Up ‘Giving Up’

By Jim Selman | Bio

My partner and I were recently enjoying one of those lazy weekend mornings just chatting about life in general when we got onto the subject of getting older and how we feel about it all. I made the point that my passion and The Eldering Institute® is about transforming our culture’s view of aging and teaching people that we can change how we relate to the future—and, as a consequence, we can have more choices, more possibility and more ‘aliveness’

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Fearless Aging

Ageism 2009

By Jim Selman | Bio

There is nothing new about ageism, other than the fact that there are increasing numbers of people growing older (which means increasing numbers of examples of age discrimination against older people). The latest statistics from AARP show formal anti-discrimination complaints are up roughly 30% in the workplace. I had some fun with this in my recent blog, proposing we create the National Organization of Pissed-Off Elders (N.O.P.E.). However, it isn’t a laughing matter when we see a potentially tragic problem growing in our society that can be prevented.

I say tragic because ageism, whether institutionalized, culturally embedded or motivated by fear or greed, is a wedge being driven between parents and children and between grandparents and grandchildren. If we don’t address ageism, we will all continue this ‘circumstantial drift’ toward making age a political constituency that has older people competing with younger people over scarce resources (or whatever the coin of the realm might be on a given topic). At a time when

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Fearless Aging

N.O.P.E.: National Organization of Pissed Off Elders

By Jim Selman | Bio

I want to create a new organization to stamp out stupidity and indifference and restore common decency and goodwill into society. I think I’ll call it the National Organization of Pissed-Off Elders (N.O.P.E.).

What’s pissing us off?

A lot more than just ‘aging’ issues like Social Security, pharmaceuticals and our sex lives.

First, it pisses us off that the people in charge are squandering away the opportunities they had to make the world work, or at least be a better place. For example…

  • Thinking we get stupid as we get older
  • Growth at any cost
  • Short-sightedness
  • Self-righteousness
  • Special interests
  • Contrived controversy
  • Bullying, greed and intolerance
  • Turning an economic mechanism like capitalism into an ideology
  • “Us versus Them”ism

N.O.P.E. could have both positive and negative strategies. For example, when we’re talking to someone who is speaking baby talk to us or raising their voice so we can hear, we could shout

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Fearless Aging

Wisdom

By Stuart Whitley | Bio

the man with the unpressed suit and upraised arms
speaking in monotone, knows exits and oxygen masks
the woman in the seat beside me moulds latex
into monsters’ heads for movies, and wonders
if she has time for a Harvey’s hamburger, loaded,
before her bags arrive on the carousel
do these people have wisdom?
 
five miles below, a man scratches earth from dinosaur bones
and another scutters down darkened lanes breaking

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Fearless Aging

Toward An Ethic of Aging III

By Stuart J Whitley | Bio

In my last post I wondered about whether or not there was an ethic of aging. Again, by ‘ethics’ I mean simply some general consensus or agreement about what is good about the way we relate to one another. This is a group or communal expression of belief, rather than an individual or moral outlook. The distinction is thus simply drawn between morals and ethics, terms which are often interposed. I should be more explicit and ask whether there is a reasonable consensus

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Fearless Aging

Mastery

By Jim Selman | Bio

Over the course of my lifetime, I have heard many  ‘bottom-line’ bits of wisdom. For example, “the key to happiness is loving what you do”.  Or, “at the end of the day, you can either resist life or surrender and live life on life’s terms”.  These kinds of nuggets are usually true and are certainly valid in a list of maxims and aphorisms for living. “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” by Robert Fulghum is a great example of

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Fearless Aging

A Sense of Wonder

By Jim Selman | Bio

My partner and I arrived in New York after a two-week ‘working vacation’ to Kiev and Barcelona. Our hotel is in mid-town and a great location for walking around in this great city. I am no stranger to the Big Apple and come often, but this was my partner’s first trip in over 25 years. By the time we got to the hotel, it was 2 a.m. European time. My normal plan would be to head straight for bed and sleep around the clock. Instead, we decided to take a stroll through Times

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