Most of the attempts to categorize people who are older (“temporally
challenged”, seniors, golden oldies and so forth) are usually attempts
to find a label to make a state or condition that most people relate to
as ‘negative’ seem nicer. Ronni Bennett has some interesting thoughts about language
and how our labels often reveal a lot about how we observe and relate
to others and the world in general. I agree with her that most of it is
nonsense, and I like the term Elder.
When
talk
By Shae Hadden
Bio
I’m fascinated by how people affix meaning to language, and the
limitless interpretations they draw from words. ‘Old’, for example,
triggers different responses among my friends. And their
interpretations show me how they feel about growing older. It’s not
always a happy image…
For
the past few months, I’ve been meeting new people and they, for some
inexplicable reason, believe me to be younger than I actually am.
Flattering,
Ronni at TGB recently took a whack at being inundated by wrap-around sexually explicit media
and how it can negatively stereotype older folks whose libidos are in a
state of “natural” decline. I wonder if a declining libido is natural.
If we know of examples of late-life lust, then it can’t be natural. It
is a choice.
Now,
if people simply lose interest or want to let it go, then I respect
their choice. However, if they are buying into a story that they
‘can’t’ or
I have been working a lot lately with organizations and, in
particular, with their cultures and attempts to change them. Given my
growing interest in the culture of aging, I have been paying a lot of
attention to what people say about how the ‘retirement’ process works,
particularly in the Public Service and other large bureaucracies. The
gist of what I hear is that people do their darnedest to ‘get away’
from all the bullshit, while still ‘hanging
I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t encounter or hear about
some nasty or absurd bit of bureaucratic/governmental non-sense. With
media people talking to other media people who are speculating on what
might or might not be true or relevant and an ever-increasing wave of
right versus left propaganda filling cyberspace, it’s just too much.
And when it comes to contacting me directly, there must be more
productive and satisfying avenues of expression
I guess everything starts somewhere. This is my first ‘blog’. I’m
still getting used to the local jargon in these here parts. I see the
‘blogosphere’ as the perfect place to share my ideas about age and
aging.
Actually, this isn’t the beginning of my interest in and commitment
to do something about the culture of aging that we all share. It has
been a kind of hobby of mine for a long time. And now, as I approach
65, it has become more of a mission.
I
am clear that, in North America