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…
I appreciate it. The automobile is the single biggest factor in all of this and the dream of suburbia. One of the biggest scams every pulled on a population.
My senior years are what I have in mind while looking for my place. I want to feel alive to the end. Not sitting around my house waiting for people to come see me.
I watched the last decade of my grandparent's lives -stuck in their home, watching tv, waiting for the end. It didn't help that their end came during the pandemic. Grandpa (95) passed at the beginning of that time, then grandma (95) at the end of it. They had day nurses, but not family.
It gave me a glimpse of the isolation and loneliness that can happen, if I don't plan for a different lively life now.
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…
I appreciate it. The automobile is the single biggest factor in all of this and the dream of suburbia. One of the biggest scams every pulled on a population.
My senior years are what I have in mind while looking for my place. I want to feel alive to the end. Not sitting around my house waiting for people to come see me.
I watched the last decade of my grandparent's lives -stuck in their home, watching tv, waiting for the end. It didn't help that their end came during the pandemic. Grandpa (95) passed at the beginning of that time, then grandma (95) at the end of it. They had day nurses, but not family.
It gave me a glimpse of the isolation and loneliness that can happen, if I don't plan for a different lively life now.