A continuation of life as it should be, the Western idea of retirement doesn’t seem to care about people’s participation in society…my grandparents in Australia certainly seemed to sit around, mostly in isolation, waiting for life to be over but without being truly conscious that that is what was happening. I don’t want that to happen to people in our society anymore, for that to be the default path. But our towns and cities as well as social constructs are not conducive to community. When you’ve commuted to a job outside your community every day for 40 years and then leave it to be at home (if you’re ‘lucky’ enough to financially afford to), you don’t know the community. Maybe no one else living near you knows the community either. Maybe there just isn’t one. The whole Western way of life needs an overhaul! It’s bloody hard when you have to participate in it to push back against it. But you’re doing that Rocco, and reading the newsletter gives us hope and ideas for changing what we can. I just don’t quite know how to do it in a Western city yet, but there has to be options…
A continuation of life as it should be, the Western idea of retirement doesn’t seem to care about people’s participation in society…my grandparents in Australia certainly seemed to sit around, mostly in isolation, waiting for life to be over but without being truly conscious that that is what was happening. I don’t want that to happen to people in our society anymore, for that to be the default path. But our towns and cities as well as social constructs are not conducive to community. When you’ve commuted to a job outside your community every day for 40 years and then leave it to be at home (if you’re ‘lucky’ enough to financially afford to), you don’t know the community. Maybe no one else living near you knows the community either. Maybe there just isn’t one. The whole Western way of life needs an overhaul! It’s bloody hard when you have to participate in it to push back against it. But you’re doing that Rocco, and reading the newsletter gives us hope and ideas for changing what we can. I just don’t quite know how to do it in a Western city yet, but there has to be options…