There comes a time when Baby Boomers realize that they are no longer the youngest clients at a favorite resort, restaurant, or health club. In an article in The New York Times, Michele Willens writes about the shock of "looking around and suddenly being the oldest." We know the feeling. It's hard to accept the fact that our joints are aching, our skin is sagging, our memories are not what they used to be, and we are no longer members of the vanguard. For a generation who thought they could be "forever young," aging means adjustments. Marc Freedman is the visionary of a new movement afoot in America called "unretirement." Whereas old images of this stage of life focused on the golf course and the RV, the defining institutions of unretirement are the workplace and the entrepreneurial start-up. This encore approach to an aging America is a good option for many retirees. As Freedman puts it: "Never before have so many people had so much experience and the time and the capacity to do something significant with it."
Posted by Frederic Brussat on August 20, 2014
Early in 2014, Nicolas Kristof declared in his New York Times column that mental health was one of the most systematically neglected issues in the United States, given the fact the National Institutes of Health says a quarter of American adults suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder – depression, anxiety disorders, anorexia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and others. All across the country are relatives and loved ones struggle with difficult psychiatric disorders.
Posted by Frederic Brussat on August 8, 2014
The freedom to choose one option over another is the source of democracy and consumerism. We like to tell ourselves that we can determine our destiny by the choices we make. But as Sophia Rosenfeld writes in the thenation.com, we are lousy at making up our minds and many of us are so overwhelmed by the deluge of options that we are having more trouble making choices than ever before. "It seems that we routinely overestimate what we know. We fail to predict what we will want in the future. We are inconsistent about our preferences. . . . We also tend to ignore facts that do not jibe with the outcome we desire; we focus on information that is irrelevant, or see patterns where they do not exist, or get distracted by our fleeting emotions."
Posted by Frederic Brussat on July 31, 2014
Leon Neyfakh at bostonglobe.com writes about the interest of scientific researchers in adult playfulness. We’ve seen lots of studies about our activities as workers, thinkers, and problem solvers but now psychologists are taking a hard look at the effects of adults engaging in play. People are seeking an escape from the stress and the tensions of the times through humor. Or as Kurt Vonnegut put it: "We are on earth to fart around." All one has to do is glance at the popularity of shared cartoons on Facebook or funny animal videos on YouTube to see what we mean.
Posted by Frederic Brussat on July 28, 2014
In 1968 gerontologist Robert Butler coined the term "ageism" to describe the many ways in which society discriminates against the old. Maggie Kuhn formed the Gray Panthers in 1972 as a network of older people dedicated to fighting ageism in all of its nasty and degrading forms. This organization brought about national and local changes in nursing home procedures, health care, and forced retirement. Kuhn wrote:
Posted by Frederic Brussat on July 21, 2014
Large numbers of people are entering the stage of life where they need the services of caregivers to meet their physical and emotional needs, and there are just not enough of these skilled professionals. Caregiving is repetitive, exhausting, and complicated. In the United States the pay is usually low – another reason very few are taking on the challenges of this kind of work.
In Japan and elsewhere, the creation and promotion of nursing-care robots is moving full steam ahead. In a fascinating article in The New York Times, Louise Aronson writes about those who believe that robots can solve the workforce shortage of caregivers.
Posted by Frederic Brussat on July 17, 2014
In an article on GoodNewsNetwork, Maurico Estrella writes about being in a funk over his divorce. Then, to make matters worse, he arrived at the office to find the monthly directive to change the password for his computer. The new password had to consist of at least one UPPERCASE character, at least one lowercase alphabetic character, at least one symbol, and at least one number.
Posted by Frederic Brussat on July 14, 2014
One of the great challenges in all the world's religious and spiritual traditions is learning to love our enemies. Contemporary cultures still honor the eye-for-an-eye approach to enemies. Revenge is seen as an appropriate closure to suffering and great loss. So many of us find it difficult to let our enemies become our spiritual teachers. Two prime examples of this devotional path are His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who often states he is grateful to the Chinese, and Vietnamese Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh, who empathizes with the waywardness of adversaries and the importance of deeply listening to them.
Posted by Frederic Brussat on July 9, 2014
We are not surprised by the large role pictures and videos of cute, beautiful, and silly animals (usually cats and dogs) play on the social media. Some people genuinely adore their animal companions and want to share photos of them with their friends. Others view their pets as players in shows directed by them to win likes and add to their stature as popular media mavens. While we understand the appeal of these posts, we still have mixed feelings about them.
Posted by Frederic Brussat on July 7, 2014
Talk to people today about being alone and many of us will admit that it is a very unsettling experience. Given a few unstructured moments, we fill it up with texting others, posting to our social media accounts, listening to music, watching YouTube videos, or reading emails. When we stop doing and face simply being, we soon feel bored and restlessness overtakes us. Have we lost the capacity for silence and solitude?
About This Blog
Spiritual literacy is the ability to read the signs written in the texts of our own experiences. It is recommended and practiced in all the world's religions. Whether viewed as a gift from God or a skill to be cultivated, this facility enables us to discern and decipher a world full of meaning. More