A Timeless Way of Living
A Timeless Way of Living
There is a Way of living that is most natural and humanizing. It is a humane way of living that covers the entire life span and seeks to maximize what is best about and within each stage of life. Childhood, adolescence, adulthood, peak maturity, decline, and old age.
However, we are now facing a serious problem of extensive infirmity in the elderly because medical advances are enabling people to live much longer than they ever have before. In fact, the fastest growing segment of the population in America are those over the age of 65.
The Frontline episode "Living Old" (aired 11-21-06, TPT, channel 2, MN) examines this issue head on and gives us a great deal to think about and discuss regarding no only the financial and economic questions this raises, but also the deeper social impacts this will have. There are a great many policy issues that will have to be addressed that will become un-ignorable in the very near future.
Although it is very possible that the other crises, namely energy and the environment, that are now coming online will make the problems of aging somewhat moot in the future as resources dry up, this does nothing to address the current suffering and lack of humane policies to deal with the already old and infirm.
At the heart of this issue is the nature of our relationships whereby the economic relations have had an enormously detrimental effect on the communal. As a result, the social fabric is in taters and both the very young and very old share the common problem of a lack of genuine care.
These must be corrected. And so, we must take a new look at how we really ought to be living which I do in a later post.
There is a Way of living that is most natural and humanizing. It is a humane way of living that covers the entire life span and seeks to maximize what is best about and within each stage of life. Childhood, adolescence, adulthood, peak maturity, decline, and old age.
However, we are now facing a serious problem of extensive infirmity in the elderly because medical advances are enabling people to live much longer than they ever have before. In fact, the fastest growing segment of the population in America are those over the age of 65.
The Frontline episode "Living Old" (aired 11-21-06, TPT, channel 2, MN) examines this issue head on and gives us a great deal to think about and discuss regarding no only the financial and economic questions this raises, but also the deeper social impacts this will have. There are a great many policy issues that will have to be addressed that will become un-ignorable in the very near future.
Although it is very possible that the other crises, namely energy and the environment, that are now coming online will make the problems of aging somewhat moot in the future as resources dry up, this does nothing to address the current suffering and lack of humane policies to deal with the already old and infirm.
At the heart of this issue is the nature of our relationships whereby the economic relations have had an enormously detrimental effect on the communal. As a result, the social fabric is in taters and both the very young and very old share the common problem of a lack of genuine care.
These must be corrected. And so, we must take a new look at how we really ought to be living which I do in a later post.
posted by NeoLotus at 1:12 AM
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