Life is Long, Art is Short (and Sweet)

“The older I become, the more the landscape resembles me.”
Charles Wright – Sestets (2009). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

The title for this blog segment is an obvious flip on the traditional expression of Ars longa, vita brevis that serves as a nugget of wisdom from Hippocrates (and Seneca)

Life is short,
[the] art long,
opportunity fleeting,
experiment dangerous,
judgment difficult.

but has since expanded to perhaps indicate that in our “short” lives (our temporal limits) can gain some degree of immortality via the creative arts that can be produced (or genetic reproduction). Think of Shakespeare’s sonnets which have outlived Shakespeare and yet Shakespeare still “lives on.”

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

But the title for this segment turns the expression on its head – life is long and art is short (and sweet) so that I propose the paradigm shift in our lives as the aging experience is much more “longer” than Seneca or Hippocrates were thinking of…and that the role of art is of course still long (Ars longa), but perhaps the impact and the role of art can help to create the reflection, the silence, the pause, the moment – that becomes momentous (instead of momentary).

While the researchers and the media revel in the marvels of increasing life expectancy and the potential “breaking” of the limits of the human life span (see Aubrey de Grey), I think – no make that – I feel, that we will need MORE (not less) of the arts to create and provide the necessary anchors-points along the journey that is long (vita longa).

    

I envision this as the metaphor and the visual and the heuristic:

I am drifting on a boat down the Mississippi River, being pulled along the current and I notice to my right, along the shore, an old wooden dock with another smaller boat tied with a tattered rope to a rusted cleat. As I drift along the river in one boat, I am now suddenly – on the dock – watching me go by on the boat down the river. I stand on the uneven dock sensing the flow of the river, a relentless flow southbound. I see me go by – we both wave at each other and as I stand I take in the moment that flows by me as I watch me on the dock reflecting on how I am moving forward and yet standing still for the moment – as the moments unfold on the dock. I see you write something on paper as I take the photograph of you writing about me taking a photograph. The great blue heron lifts from the naked branch – upward and into the glare of the afternoon sun. The sun that marks the days – that drift by and as my boat slips into the great open waters of the gulf and I think back to the moment of that person on the dock – who seemed so content on just standing there – observing/reflecting – and perhaps wanting to be on the boat that drifted by – going southward and into the vast horizon.

    

If life is to be long – if aging is to be more than an industry, a market, a burden, an unknown, then we need art more than ever. The art is short and sweet so that there are moments – and not just a ceaseless flow onward. For what difference does it make? If life to be 50 years or 150? Or 300 years? It is still one long journey onward – year after year.

But the opportunity to pull over to the side. To drop anchor. To tie up on the dock cleat. To step out onto the dock and stand and observe. Write. Sing. Touch. Smell. Sit. Breath – and let the river run on.

Life is both the flow and the back eddy. Entropic and non-entropic.
Life as Newtonian and Taoistic.

And so that is why (when asked) – why do we need art?

Answer: Art is our shortness that creates the momentous out of the momentary. And that is a sweet experience to counter the boredom, the ennui, melancholy, and the atrophy of experience.

Heidegger believed that poets renew our history, which act as the guardians of being (physis), which, under pressure of the applied science (Techne) becomes rigid and inflexible. Neal Oxenhandler (2009) noted how Rimbaud anticipated Heidegger – as Heidegger would later propose that, “Poems are not about things themselves but how they are masked, revealed, transformed, and recreated by consciousness.”

That can be haiku with Basho:

By the old temple,
            Peach blossoms,
A man hulling rice.

That can be a love sonnet by Pablo Neruda:

I love the handful of the earth you are.
Because of the meadows, vast as a planet,
I have not other star. You are my replica
Of the multiplying universe.

That can be the surrealistic gaze of Andre Breton:

I see the fishbones of the sun
Through the hawthorn of the rain
I hear the human linen being torn like a great leaf.

That can be the somatic and psychic connection of Laurie Sheck:

If I could see into a human genome I’d see long spaces much like this,
Vast stretches of empty surfaces, then clusters of information teeming,
Then still empty spaces…

Ms. Sheck’s verse (in “Captivity”, 2007) is like no other – visceral and it flows like the blood in capillaries; her verse on the “retreating figure” is mystical and organic – her skin is “a tapestry of doubts, a tablet evanescing.”

That could be the earthy space of Ted Kooser’s “Delights and Shadows” (2004) who found the back eddy in this verse,

All night, this soft rain from the distant past.
No wonder I sometimes waken as a child.

And now I end with the final example, from a fine publication by Charles Wright (2009) and it captures the essence of why we need the art in our lives so long ~

The metaphysics of the quotidian was what he was after:
A little dew on the sunrise grass,
A drop of blood in the evening trees,
a drop of fire.
If you don’t shine you are darkness.
The future is merciless,
Everyone’s name inscribed
On the flyleaf of the Book of Snow.

Old rule: Ars longa, vita brevis
New rule: Life is Long, Art is Short (and Sweet)

Thanks, Scott D. Wright

Aging Well qua East and West: Walking meets Downward Facing Dog

In our current world of prescriptions (Rx) and over-the-counter (OTC) remedies for all the ails us both mentally and physically, it is refreshing and even comforting to know that there are still practices in which the classical-traditional-antiquated-conventional human BODY may benefit from what it was meant to do – quite naturally.

Perhaps you were thinking – ah, you must mean – sexual activity. Okay, good point. But other than that – although it is perhaps highly correlative that the topics I have in “mind” and could be nevertheless connected to sexuality (think blood flow to the brain and other parts)

And now that I have your attention….
Did you know that September is National Yoga Month ? This September will mark the first official National Yoga Month designated by the Department of Health & Human Services. National Yoga Month was developed to raise awareness of yoga’s health benefits and provide people with guidance and tools to improve their well-being. Organizers are calling on the yoga community, particularly yoga teachers and studios, to help through hosting events and offering free classes and donation classes that help support the cause. See www.yogamonth.org for more information.

That’s very nice – and so? And this has to with aging – in what way?

Glad you asked. Along my own journey of life and into the aging experience, I have reflected upon – and then tried (experientially) various forms of physical activities to stay healthy (not to stay young) such that I could follow the common wisdom of a cultivating a sound mind and body. I have always loved being in involved in sports – and I find the competition (either in team sport or against the standing records on paper) to be highly motivating and it brings out the best in my potential and capabilities. Baseball, basketball, swimming, football, track and field, soccer, tennis, marksmanship (rifle-pistol), martial arts (judo)…but into my fifties (make that a over half-century old) I am not as motivated to run full-court basketball or run the 100 meter at all-out speed or even try to throw a fastball (like the heaters I used to throw – what happened to the “gun” in my right arm?) or place a nice group of .40 S&W in the bull’s eye – but while wearing multi-layered glasses.    

The body is still wanting to be active and engaged and moving – and yet there has been a shift toward other – newer forms of physical activity without necessarily giving up the ones I associate with the “first half of life.”

So, here is where I introduce some research and some personal observations for you to consider…it is all simply recommendation and not prescription.

A recent research article (just recently published) in The Journal of Psychology, 2009, 143(4), 390–404 indicated some interesting findings in the domain of the aging experience.

Psychosocial Correlates and Outcomes of Yoga or Walking Among Older Adults

JENNIFER M. KRAEMER University of Massachusetts, Amherst

DAVID X. MARQUEZ University of Illinois at Chicago

One has to be careful with interpreting any research that simply reports correlations (this is not cause and effect) but the results from the study point to some good news about how the classical-traditional-antiquated-conventional human BODY (in contrast to any post-human body perhaps) and MIND may benefit from WALKING + YOGA.

Kraemer and Marquez (2009) do a great job of setting up the rationale for why we all need to pay closer attention to these issues, as they note that,

 “Adults who are older than 65 years of age comprise the fastest growing populations in the United States (National Institute of Aging, 2002). Also, this population suffers from the greatest ratio of chronic diseases and disability (Berg & Casells, 1990; Hoffman & Rice, 1996). Impairments in function can begin as early as the age of 50 years (Huang et al., 1998). It has further been reported that almost 20% of the U.S. population of adults who are 55 years of age or older experience specific mental disorders (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1999). Physical activity has been shown to improve mental and cardiovascular health (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1996). Despite these findings, it has been reported that more than 70% of U.S. adults who are 45 years of age or older do not engage in the recommended amount of physical activity (Centers for Disease Control, 2005).”

This is not a good sign of things to come in an aging society. But it also does not mean that everyone should leap out of their recliner chair and sign up for next month’s marathon.

So what does the body and mind need? Let us talk a walk and figure that out – and keep walking.

And may I suggest that flexibility and balance and coordination of mind/body is also important.

Okay, what do you have in “mind”?

Kraemer and Marquez (2009) noted that,

 “Yoga has been shown to improve musculoskeletal flexibility, balance, strength, memory, endurance (Mahajan & Babbar, 2003), and quality of life (Malathi, Damodaran, Shah, Patil, & Maratha, 2000). Physical positions of yoga called asanas provide a low-intensity exercise that improves muscle strength, flexibility, and body alignment (Parshad, 2004). Many studies on mind–body interventions, including yoga practices, have shown their effectiveness in treating stress-related mental and physical disorders (Becker, 2000; Jacobs, 2001). Yoga participants have reported significant short-term reductions in anxiety, tension, depression, anger, and confusion (Berger & Owen, 1992).”

They summarize their research report in this fashion,

“As older adults continue to suffer from psychological and physiological ailments, new ways to healthily improve their overall quality of life are necessary. Although there is still much to be learned about the psychosocial effects of yoga, it is clear that there are benefits associated with this form of physical activity. Future research should continue to bring a greater understanding and awareness of this ancient form of physical activity to the Western world.”

I concur – so as you consider your health and well-being into the second half of life, you may keep running the marathons and try to throw the 60 yard “bomb” down the field or take on the young toughs with some street hoops – or you could blend in with what the body wants and needs with walking to the nearest yoga class as you contemplate that it is TIME to do so – so that in time – you are aging on your own time.

Namaste ~ Scott D. Wright

The gerontological threads of “No Country for Old Men”: to W.B. Yeats via the Coen Brothers & Cormac McCarthy

 No Country for Old Men: The Gerontological Threads 

            I do not find books, they find me.

            This is something I speak as though a mantra (but it does not necessarily reduce the adrenaline) as I enter a bookstore or library.

So like a beachcomber looking for something interesting on the sand – perhaps an exotic shell or my favorite: a shark’s tooth – the new book shelving area at the university library promises to offer items recently published – and perhaps a rare or unusual textual gold nugget (in a lot of gravel) in the literature. All disciplines – all fields – all specialties are fair game as you never know what title may leap out and simply beg to be examined – and then most likely checked out for further reading.

So, it was this title that caught my eye/brain because it contained the words – “philosophy” and “Coen Brothers” in the same title. Bam! Good enough for me as it had already reached critical mass with either part on the spine (and front cover) of the book – and there they were – connected together. In my opinion, I could take the movies by Terrence Malik, Stanley Kubrick, Francis Ford Coppola, and the Coen Brothers and spend the rest of your life in cinematic bliss and perpetual deconstruction.

Most of you may be aware of the filmology with the Coen Brothers and perhaps you have your own favorite:

Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Intolerable Cruelty, The Ladykillers, No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading…

And I have bolded the one movie – No Country for Old Men – that I throrougly enjoyed and I had reflected on for many weeks after seeing it for the first time – and then seeing it several times over the course of a few months to follow. I knew I wanted to offer some commentary on that film – like I have done with others, espcialyl as it relates to aging issues, but I never got around to seeing that through.

So, here is the book published just recently (2009) – and it is quite the gold nugget – the shark’s tooth on the beach. And it has served as catalyst for me to revisit the book and movie – and follow the threads once again. This book has re-energized some further reflections on that movie which connects back to Cormac McCarthy’s book which then leads back to W.B. Yeats poetry which, in one poem, contains the title for the McCarthy book (and then the movie).

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE COEN BROTHERS (2009)

Edited by Mark T. Conard, University Press of Kentucky - ISBN: 978-0-8131-2526-8

            There are two chapters in the edited book that directly relate to the Coen Brothers movie. One is by Richard Gilmore, No Country for Old Men: The Coens’ Tragic Western and the other is No Country for Old Men as Moral Philosophy by Douglas McFarland. I found both insightful and full of interesting analyses for the film version of McCarthy’s book.

Gilmore thought that No Country for Old Men “recapitulated the patterns of ancient Greek tragedy.” I would agree. And in addition, there is the notion of a very important life lesson inherited from Greek tragedy – “Avoid hubris” – which is written on the wall at the famous Greek temple, the Oracle of Delphi. And I especially liked Gilmore’s connections with the movie (book) and the existential conditions of fate and the great human challenge of “reason” (Apollo) and “passion” (Dionysius) which is assumed to be conflictual in each person and plays out in the characters (Anton Chigurh, Llewelyn Moss, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell) in the movie as though a stage in ancient Greece. Sheriff Bell (played by Tommy Lee Jones) is reflective and stoic as he watches the horrific spectre of a powerful force – wild and without remorse – become unleashed across the landscape of civilization. What fascinated me was the theme of generational transition and the sense of a landscape – the context in which we are embedded – is greatly transformed and we intimately sense of being left behind – falling to the wayside – as a new set of virtues and morals and perspective envelopes us – like a wall of clouds across the harsh “country” that is best suitable for the young and the restless – those who are strong and resilient – and not for those who are “old.”

Opening to the movie – No Country for Old Men via YouTube

The country is sparse – harsh – and cruel – with the thin line of “law” between wilderness and civilization. Here is the point where you can (as I did to get into the mood) turn up some Marty Robbins songs from Gunfighter Ballads & Trail Songs – and play “El Paso” or “Big Iron” to get the audio context.

Sure, there is the notion of “law” but it means having to relentlessly stand against it as a rising tide. Gilmore (2009 – in Conrad’s edited book) offered an intriguing perspective about the aging process as it related to the film. He reviewed the “evolutionary logic” for aging (and getting old) in comparison to youth (and Gilmore is quoting another writer here),

“In every species, the most important individuals are those which can reach sexual maturity, because they are the ones with the greatest capacity for propagation. Natural selection, will, therefore, adjust the optimal state of animals to the time of their sexual maturity. In humans, for instance, maximal strength and resistance to disease is reached between twenty and thirty years…Natural selection would tend to accumulate…harmful effects in the postreproductive period of the animal’s life, thus favoring deterioration of the body with age. In other words, vigor in youth should in a way be paid for by senescence.” (p. 73).

And Gilmore then makes the connection with Llewelyn Moss as we watch him interact in the country that is NOT suitable for old men – in this regard that the country ages him during the course of the movie (it takes its toll) – and he is facing decline and loss of strength by relentless pursuit of Chigurh – and it will all come to an (inevitable) tragic end. Gilmore also at this point builds the bridge to W. B. Yeats and ‘Sailing to Byzantium” but we will hold off on that for a few more paragraphs. I will, however, add the following analytical points by Gilmore that I think are right on target with the focus on Sheriff Bell as sage-like “Old Man” who has seen plenty across his lifetime – and perhaps he has seen enough – as what “he has done…is bear witness to certain events” (p. 77).  Bell proposed to be the “chronicler of the times” – and what has he seen? Think the line from William Shakespeare in Macbeth – Something Wicked This Way Comes –and the novel by Ray Bradbury (1962); or think of T.S. Eliot’s lament in The Wasteland where Bell can sense that,

“…that things are out of alignment, that balance and harmony are gone from the land and from the people.” (p. 74).

This vision – this perspective – is both haunting and deeply moving. The question is whether or not this “feeling” is a product of generational placement or in fact is a perennial theme of American culture? Do we think that, as a part of one cohort and trapped in time, yet all the while time is moving, that our time was so much different (and better?) compared to each wave that succeeds us? But if we were to have the bird’s eye view – from high above – and with the long view of history, then are things like the dialectics of Heraclitus – We both step and do not step in the same rivers – in the sense that it is always changing, but from the vantage point of being old – we believe, we think, we know how much it has changed. And yet while there are threads still with us from the past, at the same time we are aghast at the slippage, the fragmentation, the disenchantment, the decline (as though aging brings with it the attitudinal evaluation that all is in decline!), and breaking down of predictable and assumed structures that were supposed to hold all in place. To be alive in the time of the First World War and wonder about the “balance”, and then in the 1920’s and then witness the Great Depression, and then to be alive in the 1940’s and then witness World War, and then later, the Cold War, the 1960’s with assassinations and civic unrest, then later…well, every decade has its share of moments and events – both collective and personal – to make us believe that the great unraveling has occurred (see poetry of Yeats below).

When I was writing out this segment for the Rogue Scholarship on Aging blog, I had a moment of serendipity – a thread from the past, something I had read before, was emerging into this line of thinking, and sure enough, I was able to find the excerpt that tied in to the movie and McCarthy’s book. The excerpt is from a favorite paperback book of mine, Conquering Horse (1965) by Frederick Manfred. This was one of my “rite of passage” books – a perfect read for entering into young adulthood – and the epigram at the front of the book is what sparked into my consciousness as I was writing for this segment. It is an excerpt from D.H. Lawrence (Studies in Classic American Literature),

“…When you are in America, America hurts, because it has a powerful disintegrative influence upon the white psyche. It is full of grinning, unappeased aboriginal demons, too, ghosts, and it persecutes the white men like some Eumenides, until the white men give up their absolute whiteness. America is tense with latent violence and resistance. The very common sense of white Americans has a tinge of helplessness in it, and a deep fear of what might be if they were not commonsensical. Yet, one day the demons of America must be placated, the ghosts must be appeased, the Spirit of place of atoned for. Then the true passionate love for American soil will appear…”

This assessment from the “visitor” D.H. Lawrence carries significance in this manner: the intersect of wildness, American Indians, westward expansion, Greek tragedy, the “fates”, and our constant navigating with nature and culture – and the tension of reason with passion.

For further analysis, I recommend that you read Mary P. Nichol’s (2008) article – Revisiting Heroism and Community in Contemporary Westerns: No Country for Old Men and 3:10 to Yuma, Perspectives on Political Science, 37, 4 for an extension of interpretation associated with the symbolism deeply rooted in film.

            The book, No Country for Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy (2005) was his first novel since Cities of the Plain (1998) which is the third part of The Border Trilogy (see All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing). The writing style of McCarthy is visceral and compact and Lydia Cooper (2009) unpacks this book by highlighting the nihilistic depictions of morality and its use of folkloric tropes and narrative techniques. It is a great article to read and for considering the deeper iconic layers at work in the book (see “He’s a Psychopathic Killer, But so What? – Folklore and Morality in Cormac McCarthy’s No Countyr for Old Men” – Papers on Language & Literature, Winter2009, Vol. 45 Issue 1, p37-59.) Aside from the roles of good and evil and the tensions of reason and passion, there is the heavy weariness of the cumulative effects of time on life itself. Although the title of the film (book) is taken from a line in the Yeat’s poetry “Sailing to Byzantium”, I believe that a stanza from another poem (“The Second Coming”) of Yeat’s was equally fitting to describe the movie and the world through the eyes of Sheriff Bell.

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Again, I connect back to Sherriff Bell and his reflections as the appear in the book as italicized monologues in the McCarthy’s novel,

“I’ve lost a lot of friends over the last few years. Not all of em older than me neither. One of the things you realize about getting older is that not everybody is goin to get older with you.”‘He said I was bein hard on myself. Said it was a sing of old age. Trying to set things right. I guess there’s some truth to that. But it aint the whole truth. I agreed with him that there wasn’t a whole lot good you could say about old age and he said he knew one thing and I said what is that. And he said it don’t last long.”  

“I tried to put things in perspective but sometimes you’re just too close to it. It’s a life’s work to see yourself for what you really are and even then you might be wrong.”

“But there was part of me too that wanted to pull everybody back into the boat. If I’ve tried to cultivate anything it’s been that. I think we are all ill prepared for what is to come and I don’t care what shape it takes.”

            And finally, I end with this excerpt which will serve as a nice segue to the poetry of Yeats. This is taken from the very end of the book and I think it serves as cryptic and zen-like koan to contemplate for a while. Just let it sit and ferment and hear Tommy Lee Jones talking as you as the warm morning breeze comes in from the Texas landscape that is parched dry and with only a few clouds here and there (we will get to the dream sequence for Sheriff Bell at the very end of this segment)

“The other thing is old people, and I keep coming back to them. They look at me it’s always a question. Years back I don’t remember that. I don’t remember it when I was sheriff back in the fifties. You see em and they don’t even look confused. They just look crazy. That bothers me. It’s like they woke up and they don’t know how they got where they’re at. Well, in a manner of speaking they don’t.”

            This all sounds a lot like the story of Rip van Winkle, written by Washington Irving (1783-1859), where the Sheriff is describing the sense of a great slippage of time and the “old people” are lost in a wasteland. They are awake(n) (a la Rip van Winkle) and discover that everything around them had changed. There is disbelief and disillusionment.

Perhaps McCarthy is capturing the need for an intergenerational anchor point – the calm of eye of the storm – while all else that rages onward with the onslaught materialism and the sprawl of humanity.  To me, it sounds like cultural “shell-shock” – the changing landscape has created a “gerontological concussion” – the young adapt (faster) while the old are seen as benign at best, and fodder at worst. Step aside – the train, the bus, and the mechanized disorder of it all – is coming through.

            And now we can leap to the final connecting point along the thread. No Country for Old Men is a line from “Sailing to Byzantium” is a poem by William Butler Yeats, first published in the 1928 collection, The Tower (my copy is the “The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats”, 1956, Macmillian, New York)

That is no country for old men. The young  

            In one another’s arms, birds in the trees

            – Those dying generations – at their song,

            The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,

            Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long

            Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

            Caught in that sensual music all neglect

            Monuments of unaging intellect.

It depicts a portion of an old man’s journey to Constantinople. Through this journey, Yeats explores his thoughts and musings on how immortality, art, and the human spirit may converge. Through the use of various poetic techniques, Yeats’ “Sailing to Byzantium” describes the metaphorical journey of a man pursuing his own vision of eternal life as well as his conception of paradise.

or see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_to_Byzantium.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,  

            A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

            Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing

            For every tatter in its mortal dress,

            Nor is there singing school but studying

            Monuments of its own magnificence;

            And therefore I have sailed the seas and come

            To the holy city of Byzantium.

Yeats in his old age (via his poetry) travels to the magic city to leave behind what was and perhaps to discover a sense of the infinite – before he would have “shuffled off this mortal coil” and into the “undiscovered country.”

            Despite all of the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” that Sheriff Bell might have endured, there is still hope beyond the country that is lean and full of hard edges. There is hope beyond the evil and the vanity and the reckless passions. There is even hope beyond the cold and calculating mechanism that we have created.

            It may be a dream – a whisper – a cloud.

            And for some it is a glimmer of light. A protected cocoon of warmth.

A small flame that is to be used in the near future – when we need it.

But it will be there – to protect us.

            It is time for the old men of this country to begin the change – to start making this country – one for all ages – for all time. It is time to face the monsters – and I will join this band of brothers to assure protection for both young and old.

The Dream – Sheriff Bell

Thanks, Scott D. Wright

Personal Aging as Really {Super} Old School: [Homer, Dante, and Petrarch]

Art at its best offers us the durability that became life’s first purpose, the variety that became its second, the appeal to the intelligence and the social emotions hat took so much longer to evolve, and the creativity that keeps adding new possibilities, including religion and science. We do not know a purpose guaranteed from outside life, but we can add enormously  to the creativity of life. We do not know what other purposes life may eventually generate, but creativity offers us our best chance of reaching them ~ ( from Brian Boyd, 2009; On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, an Fiction; p. 414)

In every life, there are chances and opportunities to self-reflect and to self-examine the course of the journey (so far) of life and to perhaps create an accounting of the bricolage, the palimpsest, and the tapestry that has been created – as a human being.

As a gerontologist, I am constantly intrigued by the forces of genetics (ontogeny and phylogeny) and environments (the immediate (proximate) and historical (distal) that shape of our lives as aging individuals. My goal with this blog segment is to share with you my reflections on those more distant influences (historical) that, at least to me, create and transmit a significant amount of importance (“like a bridge over troubled waters”) in terms of guidance, ethics, morality and existential meaning to life. In return, I hope that you reflect and consider similar types of human developmental processes that are transmitted – and as example here – via works of art, music, and literature – from once upon a time – and not necessarily with the origination of “it” in your lifetime.

So I have played the mental game of “what if?” – “If stranded on an island for years, what books [or songs, or art, or a person] would I simply have to have there with me – if I only had the few [or one] – to be stranded with?” – as the benchmark for the major threads that are in textually woven into me. So let me unpack that mental game with books {although I am worried that songs could “get old” listening to … over and over again – and just when you think: Oh, that’s gotta be some music by Bob Marley, on the island I was thinking more of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons (Le quattro stagioni); and then with that other person on the island, I had better be very interesting – and very patient, and of course it would help if they were in the mode too – so I was thinking of  Lou Andreas-Salomé [and I would ask her a million questions], but if she is considered “historically dead” – then Laetitia Casta is cordially invited.

      (the island with books + intellectual conversation + whatnot)

Yes, over there in two stacks in the sand (on the beach – on the deserted island) are the complete works of Shakespeare (have as supplement – The Shakespeare Wars by Ron Rosenbaum and Shakespeare – The Thinker by A.D. Nutall) and everything ever written by Jorge Luis Borges. And close by is The Aeneid by Virgil (translation by Robert Fagles) and then Georgics (translation by Janet Lembke). And nearby is Goethe’s Faust (translated by Walter Kaufman).

But there is no doubt that Homer’s – The Odyssey is closer still. It all starts here and this book with it’s monumental and perfectly stated opening lines (as translated from Robert Fagles – 1996 – book):

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course….

But of course – That would be me  - too.

  Odysseus  (didn’t have GPS back then – but…)

And so The Odyssey became my central guidepost, a beacon and compass. It is the classic story of the journey home, but that journey will take many detours – and will take much time to unfold. And long the way, there is distraction, temptation, risk, reward, relationships, characters and symbols, mistakes and music, love and war, and justice – and reconciliation. And to bridge the super old school to the old school, I always ratchet up the volume on Grand Funk Railroad and the classic – I’m Your Captain ~

and I’ve been lost now, days uncounted,
And it’s months since I’ve seen home.  
Can you hear me, can you hear me,
Or am I all alone.…I’m getting closer to my home…  

Still searching …………………

I have a collection going of everything that I get my hands on that is printed about The Odyssey and Odysseus – to the point I am convinced (at least metaphysically) there is the re-enactment of that archetypal journey in everyone’s life. The script and story is our life – on one page or many. From one character – to the whole book cover-to-cover.

                            Circe and Calypso (+ Odysseus)

I have got numerous translations and the even one translated by T.E. Lawrence (as in Lawrence of Arabia). Also crated-up on the beach, there would be Odysseus: A Life by Charles Rowan Beye; Homer’s the Iliad and The Odyssey (A Biography) by Alberto Manguel;  No-Man’s Land: One Man’s Odyssey Through The Odyssey by Scott Huler; and then The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus by Margaret Atwood; Odysseus Unbound: The Search for Homer’s Ithaca by Roger Bittlestone; The Return of Ulysses: A Cultural History of Homer’s Odyssey by Edith Hall.

   Bloomsday !

And speaking of Ulysses, I would naturally have on hand the adventure set in one day (a la Bloomsday) by James Joyce – Ulysses which has its share of “editions” but the point being here that it would be good to follow-up on “old” Stephen Dedalus as when he was “the artist as a young man” (+ the bird girl) that book became an inflection point in my journey (Finnegan’s Wake would be something to have on hand will waiting to get my driver’s license renewed).

But back to Ulysses (the Latinized/Roman Odysseus) which will figure – and be a figure – in Ovid’s work, Virgil’s classic Aeneid, even in Shakespeare’s writings – but the bridge here is the one to Dante and Petrarch.

 Dante

But first, some background in regards to the journey with Dante.

The first book I read by the author Dante was actually La Vita Nuova but the story line of the impact of Dante on my journey went like this: I blame it on Deep Purple (the cover art from their album), the painter Hieronymus Bosch, and Ray Bradbury’s book Fahrenheit 451.

Hmm, really how does that all fit together?

Well, the painting The Garden of Earthly Delights connected back to the “Hell” panel of Bosch and then back to Deep Purple – and then in a high school English class, our teacher had our class read (and got to watch the reel-to-reel movie too!) Fahrenheit 451 and then consider the interesting proposal –  “If you had to pick one book to represent and carry forth into the world {like Montag} assuming that would all soon be destroyed, and thus no longer exist, which one would you be? Which book you would carry in your head—a walking repository? Before you answer, I want to share with you the importance of books, or better yet, the significance of knowledge, emotion, and experiences in books, not just for you, but everyone.”

And the teacher continued with calm conviction, “So before you consider your choice, I want to read an excerpt from Bradbury’s book and have you hear what he had to say about this. This is toward the end of the book, and Montag has escaped, and he is contemplating about what he has accomplished in his life . . . so far.”

What did you give the city, Montag?
Ashes.
What did the others give to each other?
 Nothingness.
Granger stood looking back with Montag. Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there. It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away.

So the teacher let those lines sink into the heads of the students. And I thought about several, like Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Or maybe The Brothers Kamarazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Maybe something from Hemingway, Fitzgerald, or even Faulkner, but the primordial images of Bosch were flying around  my head and so it was my choice – “Divine Comedy by Dante” but of course, I had never read it before. It was just the choice.

After many years – of not reading it – I finally went to a library to begin the journey – anew. Unfortunately, the area where the literature on Dante was shelved, I found that books on Dante took up an entire half row.  There was entire industry on this guy! Dante this and Dante that. Dante and Franciscans. Dante and Soap Operas. Dante in all sorts of languages. All I want is the original stuff. What about the damn Inferno? – and so I finally decided on three books out of the many others that were available on the shelves:

  Dante

The Inferno (1977) translated by John Ciardi. And then a very modernistic version titled, Dante’s Inferno (1985), translated and illustrated by Tom Phillips. And when I found the third book, I spoke out too loudly in the library in a non-professional response, “Are you shitting me?” It was a book that he thought would be impossible to be loaned out – at all – but there it was, just waiting for me. It was a larger than average sized book, and it seemed older than Dante himself. The book was covered in a brown cloth with gold gilded page edges. I examined the front cover and saw a large figure of the devil with gold fancy lettering, Dante’s Inferno, Illustrated by Gustave Dore, translated by Cary. I thought the book would be something that could have been found in the monk’s library the Eco’s book In the Name of the Rose. I wondered – What is the date on this thing? On the spine it says 1800. But that can’t be. Can it? Not that old and not right here. This should be in a special collection – shouldn’t it? –

When I opened up the book to the first page he noticed on the left hand side a huge sketch of Dante Alighieri. It was the frontpiece by Dore – Dante looks as serious as a heart attack. That face! It’s like he is pissed off at the world, but the laurel leaves around his head gives him that academic look. I loaded that book up with several others books that begged to pulled down off the shelf as well, The Body of Beatrice by Robert Pogue Harrison, and a new book by J.F. Took, Dante: Lyric Poet and Philosopher and the book that would become one of my favorites, Dante: The Poetics of Conversion by John Freccero and edited by Rachel Jacoff.

   Beatrice and Dante 

And of course, my thinking was as I began to wade through the different versions of The Inferno – Why? Why would Dante write the damn thing to begin with? What was the inspiration? – And in a selfish point of view, I wondered – Is there any message in there for me? A book about a pilgrim on a journey written a long time ago? Why did I choose this book from long ago? I was an idiot. I said that it was the one book I would memorize if I were in the scenario like in Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Where did that come from? I was showing off I guess. But why that book? It’s almost like I said it because I knew, or at least felt like, something would be in it that it would be for me. Or something to that effect. I guess that’s the point. I don’t really know. It just happened. But for a reason? Meant to be? Or just coincidence? If it was coincidence, then everything up to this point has been one long string of ‘em, and when you got a string of them, you got a pattern, and from the pattern, then you got a meaningful significance, and that leaves me with one thing – Destiny. Or maybe I have breathing the vapors at Delphi for too long.

Maybe I am wasting my time in all this digging around in books by Dante. A fool looking for fool’s gold. The sign at my door should read – Scott David Wright – Deceive thyself! –

I found that Freccero would interpret Dante’s great work with the central theme of “conversion.” The conversion dynamic would be from old to new, a complete transformation of the self, like in Augustine’s Confessions, from sinner to saint.

Freccero would highlight how the transformation for Dante was accomplished with a defining moment and that moment was connected to the experience of hell itself with absolutely no way of going around it.  Life was a struggle and before one could reach the “Light”, a person one had to accept a certain degree of “descent into humility.”  I had picked up the literary thread that Freccero would emphasize between Augustine and Dante: both tried to reach the ‘truth’ through intellectual and philosophical quests and they both came up short. Yet, the spiritual transformation that they both encountered was the redemptive path toward paradise.

And the connection back to The Odyssey.

I was fascinated that Freccero identified Ulysses as the symbolic figure for one who journeys through life with philosophical presumptions seeking the mountain of truth “the mountain of philosophic pride” only to be denied and left shipwrecked {no way !} in time and space with no transcendent vision to assist the pilgrim to elevate and detach from the earthly plane of existence – Stop! Hold it, hold it. So what Freccero is saying is that we are pilgrims on the journey, but unless there is the transformation, death and then rebirth, to something more significant, – the poet, all of it ends within a finite period of time.

And so the lesson was to be:

From the outset, the poet voice expresses the detached point of view toward which his pilgrim strives, while the journey of the pilgrim is history in the making, a tentative, problematic view constantly subject to revision, approaching certitude as a limit. It is at the last moment that the metamorphosis of the pilgrim’s view if the world is completed, when he himself has become metamorphosed into the poet, capable of writing the story we have read (p.25).


The pilgrim’s view is much like our own view of history and ourselves: partial, perhaps confused, still in the making. But the poets view is far different, for it is global and comprehensive . . . For Dante, however, as for Augustine, there was death which enabled the mind to grasp such totalities {*** my notes here – i.e., the coherence of the whole; the memory of universal history}, not by virtue of linear evolution, but rather by transcendence: a death of detachment (p.26).

And the section of Freccero’s book that I found to be the most enlightening and directly relevant to his interest in human development and aging was Chapter Eight titled Dante’s Ulysses: From Epic to Novel and it was there that he began to appreciate the symbolic templates for the life course: the circle and the straight line. It had its historical roots with Homer’s book The Odyssey, and with St. Augustine’s City of God, and Dante’s The Divine Comedy. Jason also noted that the notion of time in human life varied respectively. With Ulysses, his entire journey was represented by a departure and returning, in circular fashion, of the soul with the man using his “philosophical wisdom” as his guide and inspiration, but Dante changed the outcome of Ulysses’ journey into a “linear reading of human time” with the end point as the shipwreck of death – Why did Dante do that? One of my favorite heroes of all time. That’s not fair. Not at all. We all know that he got back to Penelope, safe and sound, but here is Freccero saying that Dante wanted to send a message – that one cannot return home without death and resurrection. No matter what – period. So Ulysses drowned in the water and Dante is saved by water. How convenient for Mr. Alighieri. And why does he get to pass judgment on Ulysses in such a manner? I am I missing something here? –

            And then I found the key to Dante’s reinterpretation of the fate of Ulysses a few pages later on when Freccero interpreted the role of Ulysses as symbol and as a warning to all of humanity, including Dante himself,

The providential course of history is represented in the Divine Comedy, as it is in the Aeneid, by the trajectory of the sun from east to west. Once it is established that this is the linear course of history, then the proud man who, in his excess, would outstrip history, or grace, dies a shipwreck, even if enfolded in the arms of Penelope (p.145).

- So that’s it? The journey is the poem. And the goal is for the pilgrim to become a poet? And by the sound of it, a poet with humility. It appears that Dante gave us Ulysses as a point in time, in all of our lives, the point in time when we follow excess, pride – fame – fortune – and the pursuit of knowledge. All of it like Faust. So beware of such a path. And what about love? Amore. Love of a woman?

Well, it looks like desire was bad news too. Look at Paolo and Francesca. Rising too high like Icarus and then the fall. But if one accepts humility, and a descent through human disgrace, and fallen, then and only then, can one see and experience a new beginning, with humble grace. Then the pilgrim and the poet will become one, as Frecerro said, ‘the circle is squared’ and he even says that Dante might think of himself as the ‘new Jason – returning with the Golden Fleece of his vision and of the poem that we read’ –

Okay, fine. I get it. Dante is like this wet blanket on human desires and reason. The only path is toward the supernatural level of happiness, toward God above. That’s the Golden Fleece. But where is Beatrice? What’s the deal with her? It’s like Dante transformed her into something else as well. Is she the sun? Is she the moon? Is she all of the stars? A celestial rose? Heaven itself? It’d almost Freudian. Repress the lust and channel that libidinous energy into art. No, better yet, a socially approved idolatry.

That’s it? Am I sure I even want to even get started with The Inferno? I think it’s the last thing I need at this point in my life. Journeying through levels of hell with Virgil. Aren’t there enough levels of hell right here in our jobs? Week to week? I don’t know. Not a good start to have Ulysses shipwrecked and all and then Beatrice turned into some semi-angel, a heavenly deity. Maybe I’ll just start into it and see what happens –

And to the left side was a Dore sketch of Dante in the middle of deep dark forest standing in a thicket of vines, looking over his shoulder, at the reader – Looking right at me, like he’s saying, you too will know what it is like. Follow me and learn –

In the midway of this our mortal life,   
I found me in a gloomy wood, astray…

Damn, what a mess he is in – and at “mid-life” no less (mid-life then about 35 or so) Just halfway though this journey of our life
I reawoke to find myself inside
A dark wood, way off course, the right road lost…

Well, Phillips certainly describes in a more straightforward way. I like that, ‘the right road lost’ – but what is this? – ‘journey of our life’ – Our? I thought this was about Dante’ s journey, but  he makes it sound it like it will ours – or mine as well – Let’s see what Ciardi has to say –

Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray   
From the straight road and woke to find myself
Alone in a dark wood. How shall I say…- Same thing – ‘our life’s journey’ – a lesson for all of us? –

The three beast’s in Dante’s path, the panther of pleasure and luxury, the lion of pride and ambition, and the she-wolf of avarice. Got it all covered don’t you Dante? Greed, power, desire, and then you had to turn back and wait, until Virgil showed up. And he said told Dante that he must go another way. ‘Follow me’ – straight through hell itself and out again, to where Beatrice would take over, for it was Beatrice who sent Virgil, to help Dante get thought it all, and even Virgil was transformed by her presence. Beatrice must be beyond flesh and reason. She is what we hope for –

Her eyes were kindled from the lamps of Heaven.   
Her voice reached though me, tender, sweet, and low.
An angel’s voice, a music of its own:

I decided to stick with Ciardi’s version all the way through and he would use Cary’s version for reviewing Dore’s sketches when needed,– Abandon all hope, All ye who enter there –

So Dante covers the role of passion, but Dante even pokes fun at humans who believe it is all high-minded reason as well. Those who follow the just the mind, the love of earthly philosophy are damned too. Those who follow the craving of the flesh are damned. Way to go Dante, you just blasted ninety percent of being human. That is human be-ing! So here I am again, wanting, craving, desire – And then what? What was it like for you Dante my judgmental friend? You know, the more I think of it, the more I believe that Dante has been here before. Yes, the great poet, has been down this road himself. Sure he has. He speaks of pride, hunger, lust, fame, fortune, the affairs of the human heart. How would he know so much? Maybe the Inferno is his own hell and he throws in the mythology symbols throughout. Minos, the who gets to decide which level one will reside in hell. The Furies, Hecate, Medusa and my old nemesis, The Minotaur, is in there too. And the Centaurs. So what was Dante trying to say here? Half-man, half-beast.

Am I not able to control my own appetites? Was Dante able to control his? I think The Divine Comedy is one big autobiography of sorts, a personal account of his tribulations dealing with the storms within himself and the turbulence all around him. The politics, the papacy, the intrigue, the exile, the friends and the enemies. Sure, it’s an account of his own human development across time, a historical picture of himself embedded in time and place. I think Dante wanted to pursue the Golden Fleece as much as Jason did.

Dante wanted to travel into adventure as much as Ulysses. Dante wanted knowledge, all of it, as much as Faust did and he wanted the love and the touch of his lady – Beatrice. He wanted all of it and it all crashed and burned all around him. And then he realized that it all lead him into a dark wood and the only way to recover from the heartache and the depression was to seek redemption. So he had to start all over again. Make it right, change horses in midstream or else be damned into regret and self-indulgence. He had to beg forgiveness, to be purified of his pride, his lust, his hunger, but again in Purgatory, there is one more lesson, another test of the flesh, and again it involves the story of my old friend from The Odyssey.

There was Dante dreaming in Purgatory and he was visited by The Siren –

I read again – and again – from the selected passage his notebook what Ciardi wrote in Canto XIX,  

I turned Ulysses from his wanderer’s way   
With my charmed song, and few indeed who taste
How well I satisfy would think to stray.

And of course it’s all about the eyes again. The eyes. Over and over again. Even Ciardi would agree. This endnote I wrote down seems to be the hardest lesson of all to learn and to obey. The age old story of the flesh, the mind, and the soul. Which one shall rule the day? –

Canto XXV endnote 119: we must keep a tight rein on our eyes; On the narrative level Virgil means simply, we must watch our dangerous path with great care. On the allegorical level, however, he can certainly be read to mean that lust (the excess of love) is the most readily inviting sin, but that it is as dangerous as a fall off the cliff, and that all men must guard their souls against it and refuse, like the souls of the Carnal how in hell, to “abundant reason to their appetites”. It was a convention of the ‘sweet new style” that love always entered through the eyes (p.340).

            – Okay. Yeah, I got it. The eyes. But still it is obvious Dante had gone astray in a big way. Too much philosophy and science and not enough faith and religion. Too much of the earthly love and not enough of the spiritual love, but again I’m lost. Dante goes to Paradise and sees her emerald eyes again and even in heaven he is still human enough to admit the energy. The sensual feelings between him and Beatrice, Canto XXIII, so that on p. 378 – 

 Tranced by the holy smile that drew me there   
into the old nets, I forgot all else –
my eyes wore blinders, and I could not care.

But then Dante finally caves in. The earthly beauty has been transformed into a divine beauty. How can you top this writing in Canto XXX? And I wondered if could I ever produce such a writing as this? It’s impossible –

The beauty I saw there transcends all measure    of mortal minds. I think only her Maker  

 can wholly comprehend so great a treasure.

As feeblest eyes, struck by the sun, go blind,

 so the resemblance of my lady’s smile

 strikes every recognition from my mind.

From the first day, I looked upon her face

 in this life, to this present sight of her,

 my song has followed her to sing her praise.

But here I must no longer even try

 To walk behind her beauty. Every artist,

 his utmost done, must put his brushes by.

Eyes. Eyes. Dante and his eyes. And then the white rose. Mystic rose. The Name of the Rose – is Beatrice – in which Dante becomes the cosmic wheel that turns independent of time and place –

And I have written down wrote into my notebook,  

Dante – who took the maxim “Know thyself” and rediscovered it through his writing of The Divine Comedy. It was his apology and redemption and transcendence. It was his own account of his journey in time and the sharing of a lifetime of memories, both good and bad. Lessons: Along your way, be careful of distractions the lead you astray and into a dark wood. Use the past to help guide your way, but do not rely on it exclusively for the future is a river of change. There is the way of the mind and the way of the flesh. Try to find the middle way. Emotions, passions, intellect,  mind,  soul,  spirituality, reason, self-reflect, and observe oneself in one’s own time. To know ourselves in history. To discover both worlds during the time we have. The outer voyage upon the seas with Ulysses and the inner one with Dante. It is a comfort and it is good to know that others have struggled with it as well. I am not alone. It is my journey but have I done anything to share what it was like? So many years but they go so quickly. What matters in the end? Love. Yes, love. How did one love? The most difficult journey of them all and that is why I am lost as well. So easy to say and so easy to know, but so hard to practice. I am whirlwind and find myself seeing both sides. I am at this point getting older and still no wiser, just knowing a little bit more stuff, still seeking, still on the journey,  still wanting and craving. When will it calm down? When does the desire for more and more end? More knowledge? More pleasure? Maybe that is why Dante called it ‘The Divine Comedy’  One big joke? Maybe it is. If you don’t know yourself after all these years. Know thyself. *** Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man below.  That about sums it up for me at this point – 


from AN ESSAY ON MAN 
Epistle II. 

…Chaos of thought and passion, all confus’d; 
Still by himself abus’d or disabus’d; 
Created half to rise, and half to fall; 
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; 
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl’d: 
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! . . .

On life’s vast ocean diversely we sail,
 Reason the card, but passion is the gale.

            – What’s it going to be Scott Wright? Which path? Destiny? Free will? Reason? Academics? Passion? Romanticism? Mind? Body? Flesh? Spirit? Know thyself. Ha! I don’t know shit. Know thyself? No –‘Know’ I don’t – No more great adventures like Ulysses. I’ve had my chance, especially at my age. There is no Beatrice. No mysterium coniunctionis. There won’t even be a portrait of the artist as a middle-aged man. Carry on wayward old man. What ever happened to the dreams? And the imagination? And the limitless possibilities? Now there is only the dark wood. The doors are shut. This is the end my beautiful friend. The end of my elaborate plans and end of the soft parade. It started back in ’69, back when I was in high school and I didn’t see the message at that time. All our lives we sweat and save, building for a shallow grave. Must be something else, as Jim would point out. Apocalypse now or never. Only the good die young. Wow, how fast I’ve gone from Epicurean to Stoic in just a few years -

Then came Petrarch ~ But i did not appreciate the generational tension between Petrarch and Dante – sort of Freud/Jung dynamic. And that Petrarch wanted to compete and then transcend the “master.” (see Petrarch & Dante: Anti-Dantism, Metaphysics, Tradition, Ed. by Baranski and Cachery, Jr., 2009). But in effect both were grappling with the Pythagorean “Y” – the fork in the road – the dualities which Hermann Hesse was able to capture so well in Narcissus and Goldmund (flesh vs/and spirit). The reconciliation of eros and claritas is a difficult road to travel (see Octavio Paz) and the battle between the senses and the rational mind, between passions and reason is very much the “ancient flame” alive in almost all of us. The key is how Dante and Petrarch offered their perspectives on the challenges so that we could all benefit – and learn. Thus, Dante and Petrarch with their didactic skills via text.

Petrarch was later “discovered” by me via Part IV in The Renaissance by Will Durant. It was in Chapter One, as I recall, where it all started with the stories of Petrarch and Boccaccio.

When I went to the first chapter, I was pleased to see that Durant had written about Petrarch who was to be known as a troubadour, “like the young Dante a generation before him”, composing verse over the next twenty-one years which added up to over two hundred sonnets to his muse: Laura – Now that’s inspiration! – Over two hundred? – Shakespeare needs to take a back seat. Or at least he needs to take a bow toward the master, Petrarch !–

I also noted an interesting thread as Durant indicated that Laura first appeared to Petrarch the year 1327 on April 6^th and it turned out that she also died on the same day in the year 1348 – Now there is an interesting triple connection, April 6^th – The birth date and death date the same. It’s also my birthday. More threads woven in.

I was thankful that Durant even provided one of Petrarch’s sonnets on page seven:

Who never looked upon her perfect eyes,

The vivid blue orbs burning brilliantly-

He does not know how love yields and denies;

He only knows who knows how sweetly she

Can talk and laugh, the sweetness of her sighs.

And I quickly noted the lines that made me think back to Dante’s homage to Beatrice, “Love is encompassed in my Lady’s eyes” –

It is true, the eyes have it. Something starts there. What is it? The ultimate temptation? The ultimate test?  Dante – and now Petrarch. I just can’t believe they were able to dedicate that much energy and time to writing across their life for just one woman. Beatrice – and then it was Laura. Dante and Petrarch saw their beloved muse and for that instant they are transformed forever.

And for a short while, I though about becoming the next Dante – Petrarch style writer. But don’t want to quit my day job just yet. They ain’t paying money for a modern day Petrarch these days. And so I have no sonnets, no poems, no verse. I’ve been dead to that for a while – a long time –

Then in 2004, I was pleased to see this book published – The Poetry of Petrarch. Translated by David Young (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004).


And I was back in the hunt with the old style – translated for us in our contemporary context -

In 1327, at precisely
The day’s first hour, April 6, I entered
This labyrinth and I have found no escape.

And I am still reading Petrarch’s verse and try to weave the meaning 682 years later -

            And here is Petrarch as precursor to Edgar Lee Masters and anticipating “George Gray” in Young’s translation (2004) there is number 80 and number 317 and in number 186; there are old friends to revisit: Homer, Virgil, Aeneas, Achilles, and Ulysses.

And in number 196,

            Time braided up that hair in tighter knots
            and bound my heart as well . . .

And in number 315 there is the wheel of fortune and the spinning out of thread and in number 168, his reaction to aging,

            Well, let it come. I’m not the only one
            who’s aging. My desire doesn’t age,
             But how much time, I wonder, have I left?

And so there it is: my sentiments exactly.

How much time is left? I don’t know, and that is why I must write.

And why? Because there is the muse and my desire doesn’t age and there is love while there is still life, even though love is,

            like snow in the sun, like wax in fire, like clouds before the wind . . .

            Her eyes—opals.  Her hair—gold.

            The muse is there saying: Write!

And it is inspiration, but what to say? How to capture the time and the memories?

It is as though Petrarch would say to me or to you that such a task is like trying to capture the notion of her beauty. It is certainly no easier than ~

            to count the stars and to catch the ocean in a little glass . . .

So now that I am off the island – I still carry with me – but inside the mind, the heart, and the soul – three influences from the really old school of arts – and writers – and even to this day – as an aging individual they all still matter.

Thanks, Scott D. Wright

A Song for the Ages – Some Roguish Thoughts on the Role of Music in the Memory, Meaning, and Metaphysics of Aging

Without music, life would be a mistake ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

In this segment, I would like to bring together a few (seemingly) disparate ideas that connect humans as aging entities as creative agents and active listeners to the construction of their environments in this regard: MUSIC.

I consider music as something both scientific (to be understood and empirically tested) and metaphysical (to be appreciated as beyond our comprehension – and that is OK as the rhythm, the lyrics, the tone, the flow, the harmony, the effect create an alchemical magic in mind, body, and soul) – and that is a rare combination indeed.  Music is an enigma – and Enigma is music. Music is synthetic and analytic – necessary and contingent. I am thinking about music and feeling about music. I am writing about music – a posteriori – but I wonder if music is as a priori as defining the ‘triangle.”

In other words, we can analyze and dissect, and gain a degree of knowledge, but it still does not equate to total depth and breadth of what it is. I believe it is one aspect of human existence which will defy scientism such that as you dig deeper and deeper and follow the reductionism inward through the vestibulocochlear nerve and toward the synapses and neurotransmitters and we will find biochemicals and space – but where is the swirl of meaning and affect and transcendental “vibes”? It’s there, but here, and over there too. The experience is total – soma, germline, brain, mind, skin, hair, memory, movement, dance, rhythmic, spiritual, and existential. The power and the anti-power of music. Even the dour Arthur Schopenhauer found a special significance to the importance of music:

To stimulate the knowledge of these Ideas by depicting individual things (for works of art are themselves always such) is the aim of all the other non-musical arts . . . [but] music, since it passes over the Ideas, is . . . quite independent of the phenomenal world, positively ignores it, and, to a certain extent, could still exist even if there were no world at all, which cannot be said of the other arts.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy noted that,

Often considered to be a thoroughgoing pessimist, Schopenhauer in fact advocated ways — via artistic, moral and ascetic forms of awareness — to overcome a frustration-filled and fundamentally painful human condition. Since his death in 1860, his philosophy has had a special attraction for those who wonder about life’s meaning, along with those engaged in music, literature, and the visual arts. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer/

We create it and then it creates us. Music as the Ouroboros. It is an extension of us – perhaps both limbic and cortex – reaching out and extended outward beyond the cranial sphere and in-between and among us – connecting and weaving, energizing the many-into-one; the ultimate e-pluribus-unum. Anthems, ballads, beauty, angst, tranquility, marching, percussion, horns, strings, quartets, symphonies – our gift and each generation stamps its identity along with it and then carries it onward – to the grave, but it all joins in the magic and memetic swirl of humanity. Music as the gift from the creator and the gift is returned many-times over as the listener is a viable part of the process. Pure reciprocation and essential as breathing. Perhaps it is instinctual (see connection below to PBS series and Oliver Sacks).

I also see (listen?) music as breadcrumbs along our trail of human development. Music as the transportation device in memory. A ontological magic carpet. In addition, there is the passage of time, the anchor points of time, and the ability of music to serve as a cognitive wonderment, a mechanism to trigger reflection and contemplation. As I have suggested many times over in these blog segments, even as we are surrounded by the onslaught of biomedical findings, the scientific management of aging (as Thomas Cole would call it), and the promise of technological wonders that await us in this century (perhaps immortality? – as Aubrey de Grey might see it), I still need to have that deepening connection to not only the present (oops it just moved on, now it is the past; nope, got it! The present – right NOW ! Ah, no, it too has passed), but the unfolding slices and streaming media that reels backward along the pathways of our human development that have intersected each and every one of us – along the journey to the present – now.

We can sense that our on-going aging process is the accumulation of experiences, stories, people, landscapes and visions. We try to understand and create patterns from all of the kaleidoscopic memories and events which have been embellished and enhanced, elevated and manipulated into a Kantian mash of things-unto-themselves – where we believe that what was {what we were} is exactly the way that it was – and that was what happened (with a high degree of probability) but can we really know for sure with the highest degree of reliability and validity – that what was – was what it was. Or are our perceptions and memories only (and barely) able to glimpse the surface or an angle or the flash and glint of what was? It is true the photo albums, the videos and other media can provide a more certain foundation, but like the Zapruder film we see it unfolding, but what happened – really? Thus, the kaleidoscopic experience – and with time, the angles and the perspectives, the people, all age – and the images, the experiences are both there – and here, but still transformed.

We can rely on our senses to perhaps to allow for the possibility of “involuntary memory” which, as an example, set the stage for the great fictional work of Marcel Proust and À la recherche du temps perdu (or in English, In Search of Lost Time) –

“She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called petites madeleines, which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim’s shell. And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place…at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory…”

So, perhaps you have had a sensory trigger – many times over. And then there is the rush (often instantaneously) through time – to a place and moment – and there is the involuntary response of emotion, affect, and the re-enactment (or is it simply a pristine review of the scene?) of the experience as it was. The re-experiencing may be vivid and lucid or perhaps a momentary flash of hazy recollection – but the neurons firing and the synapses connecting, and the bundled cords of biochemical messages fly to their designated way stations igniting the response – and the overwhelming reaction.

I am sure this has happened to you many times over your life course. Perhaps you were driving your car –and the “old” song on the FM station comes up – and then turn up the volume to get the essence of it all {if the people driving around you or on the sidewalks could only know what this means to you! – If they only knew – but then they do – they know exactly what you are going through) or you find an box or container with some LP records – the covers and then you pull out the vinyl and marvel at the magic of ridges and the needle that would transmit history, time, and the intersect of the days in school, on the job, that summer, and that lover, and that day with sun and storm, heat and wind, thunder and the rush of clouds in the sky.

I am sure this is part of the fascinating work that Oliver Sacks is engaged in and I hope you can follow up on his book: Musicophilia (see: http://musicophilia.com/

– and then PBS special that is forthcoming and to air later this month. 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/musicminds/ask.html

            Now, if may share a few trigger points along my life course as example and then end up with one song that is simply haunting the neurons right out of me (at this point).

            I have organized my iTunes playlist(s) into several categories, which roughly correspond to the following (as examples).

For the Brain (examples: Purple Haze, Jimi Hendrix; Crystal Ship, The Doors; Wake Up, Stop Dreaming, Wang Chung; Man on the Moon, REM)

For the Body: (examples: Crash Into Me, Dave Matthews Band; Big Legged Woman, Freddie King; Go All the Way, The Raspberries; God Part II, U2; Smooth, Santana and Rob Thomas (How can you not get hot and begin the dance with this one?); Let Love Take Control, Tab Benoit)

For the Fight: (examples: Street Fighting Man, Rolling Stones; Out of Control, The Eagles; Breed, Nirvana; City of Angels, Wang Chung;

For the Soul (examples: Instant Karma, John Lennon; Vide Cor Meum; Bruckner, Missa Solemis in B Flat Minor; Rachmaninov: Vespers, Op. 37; Faure: Requiem)

Some songs defy categories and I do not know where the hell to place them – I have another category that simply says “HAUNTING”

Jocelyn Pook’s: Dionysus  

Dean Can Dance: Cantara

The Allman Brothers: In Memory of Elizabeth Reed

And as a final example, here is another “haunting” song that I just added to the list and I cannot figure it out (yet – or maybe never will); it “sounds” familiar – and yet I am sure it is not.

I came across “it” by accident. I was listening to a box-set list by Crosby, Stills and Nash and trying to weave in the essence of songs like “Long Time Gone”, “Carry On” and “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” but it was another song on the list, that I guess I had always skipped over – and paid no attention to.

The song is Laughing. It is from If I Could Only Remember My Name, which is David Crosby’s first solo album (1971).  The song has this straight to the limbic/cortex drive and when Joni Mitchell’s voice joins in at the end and you have Jerry Garcia’s Pedal Steel Guitar at work – well, the reaction is unearthly and grounded – it is deeply philosophical (think: Plato’s cave metaphor) and I believe it is a mirror. But after listening, there is no longer any mirror; just dust glittering in the rays of the sun…

And all of the books could never convey the essence – of laughing.

The truth of it all.

Life – laughing. Dionysus. Odysseus. Cantara…. In Memory of…

I want to be laughing – as I die.

I want music played at my funeral. For you and for me.

But in the mean time… I will be singing.

thanks, Scott D. Wright

The Owl of Minerva flies only at dusk: Understanding our fate as time and place in history (D-Day + 65)

Article of the month – on aging issues

D-Day – June 6, 1944 – and then 65 years later……….

Welcome to another segment of the Rogue Scholarship on Aging research article-of-the month and in this edition I highlight a remarkable investigator – Glen H. Elder, Jr. – in the field of aging and an example of his latest scholarship effort (along with his co-authors).

The article:

The Lifelong Mortality Risks of World War II Experiences

But first some roguish commentary about this edition topic – and the article of the month.

In the field of gerontology, I am constantly amazed at the wide degree of latitude that represents the intersecting topics across the horizon of aging. And in my classes at the university, I try to indicate how one can (and should) go from the MICRO to the MACRO when trying to capture the aging experience. But I am (too often) guilty of backsliding toward the MICRO end of the scale and become obsessed with the latest and greatest in the domain of pleasurable reductionism that is all things biogerontological; that is, I am all over the most current new releases ranging from free radicals to telomeres to SENS to nanontechnological “stuff” that would weave into the aging organism. It is here that my mind gets jacked by the holy grail nuances of where the HOW and WHY of aging will be discovered. Yes, yes…of course, there is the psychological, the economical, and the sociological issues of aging, but talk to me about the radical evolution to be found in biotechnology and aging and I am robotically smitten.

But every now and then, the scholarship of aging in the social and behavioral sciences just simply trumps (and trounces) the academic fireworks in the biomedical field. For example, I consider The Journey of Life: A Cultural History of Aging in America by Thomas R. Cole (1997 – Canto Edition) to quite simply one of the finest publications on our field. There are times when we need the larger – MACRO view on the domain of aging and we are fortunate to have several scholars who can cover the landscape and provide the bird’s eye view for perspectives on the aging experience over time and as heavily influenced by our time in the place of history. Yes, that’s right HISTORY – perhaps to you and me, but those who lived in it – through it – it is their story and their identity – for all of life. And we too shall have our time and place – here I am thinking of the aging baby boomers – and it will be studied and reflected upon with quantitative and qualitative research, and despite the hypervelocity by which some think our future will greet us (can you say – hyperreality?), there is always the past and the formative experiences that cross-cut and polish, that expand and crush, that punish and elevate our existential selves under the onslaught of time.

We will need the microscope and the diary to understand aging. We should embrace the technology and the ontology if we are to discover the essence of life.

And so it is refreshing – and with highest respect – that I highlight a long-time (and long-term) contributor to the scholarship in the domain of sociology, demography and psychology in the field of aging. Glen H. Elder, Jr.

Here we have scholarship to serve as a gold template to think about our parents and grandparents (generationally speaking) – and then think about the cohorts to follow – and the monumental disruptions of war and conflict – and the ripple effect of tragedy and surviving.

 The Lifelong Mortality Risks of World War II Experiences (July, 2009)

Glen H. Elder, Jr

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, glen_elder@unc.edu

Elizabeth C. Clipp  Duke University Medical Center

J. Scott Brown Miami University at Oxford, Ohio

Leslie R. Martin La Sierra University

Howard S. Friedman University of California, Riverside

Research on Aging, Vol. 31, No. 4, 391-412 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0164027509333447

In this longitudinal study of American veterans, the authors investigated the mortality risks of five World War II military experiences (e.g., combat exposure) and their variation among veterans in the postwar years. The male subjects (n = 854) were members of the Stanford-Terman study, and 38% served in World War II. Cox models (proportional-hazards regressions) were used to compare the relative mortality risk associated with each military experience. Overseas duty, service in the Pacific theater, and exposure to combat significantly increased the mortality risks of veterans in the study. Individual differences in education, mental health in 1950, and age at entry into the military, as well as personality factors, made no difference in these results. In conclusion, a gradient was observed such that active duty on the home front, followed by overseas duty, service in the Pacific, and combat exposure, markedly increased the risk for relatively early mortality. Potential linking mechanisms include heavy drinking.

Glen H. Elder, Jr.

 

Glen H. Elder, Jr., Research Professor of Sociology and Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has been involved in the development of life course studies as a field of inquiry. He has investigated the Great Depression in the lives of Americans, the impact of military and wartime experiences in the life course and health of U.S. veterans, and the effects of urban poverty as well as rural change on families. Using Add Health data, he is currently investigating pathways of risk and resilience to the young adult years. He co-directs the Carolina Population Center’s training program on aging. He has also served on the faculties of the University of California (Berkeley) and Cornell University. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Elder has served as Vice-President of the American Sociological Association (1989), and as President of the Sociological Research Association (1999) and of the Society for Research on Child Development (1995-97). His books (authored, co-authored, edited) include Children of the Great Depression (1974; 1999, expanded edition), Life Course Dynamics (1985), Children in Time and Place (1993), Families in Troubled Times (1994), Examining Lives in Context (1995), Developmental Science (1996), Methods of Life Course Research (1998), and Children of the Land: Adversity and Success in Rural America (2000: William J. Goode Award). http://www.unc.edu/~elder/

Do Transhumanists Swim in Electric Pools? : (The Hermeneutics of a Post-Aging World part 1

In case you are wondering – what in the world is he talking about? - 

The title of this blog is inspired with the title of the book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? which is a science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick first published in 1968 and then made into a magnificent movie - Blade Runner (1982) -Wow, how the years roll by – why it seemed like just yesterday when I read that book and saw the movie when it first showed up at the theatre – OK, enough of the nostalgia – and so….?

               

Ok, back on track >>>  both of which describe and visualize the “future” – complete with replicants (humanoids) {see Nexus 6} – and set in the year 2019…

[side note: I don't know about you, but that seemed way off in the future when the movie first came out (1982) but now in 2009, thats.....2019 - thats about ten years from now! - which reminds me of the same psychological effect when 2001: A Space Odyssey was shown in 1968 - and then all of sudden 2001 came and went ----and then what about the sequel 2010 (aka Odyssey Two) which is ---- set in next year !]

- and the motto of the Tyrell Corporation (in the movie – Blade Runner) which makes the replicants was, “More human, than human” – but ironically some of the replicants do not want to “retire” (or die – as we would say it), rather they want to “live” longer (that is, exist beyond their programmed end point which was built in their system; a poison pill that was hardwired into their biomechanics). The film, Blade Runner, is a gerontological set piece, a philosophical mind-bender that opens the lid and pulls back the curtain on the current barrage and banter on all things posthuman, transhuman, and perhaps “post-aging.”  In the beginning of the film, when Deckhard visits the Tyrell Corporation, you see the heavy – but well-placed symbolism – of the owl flying at dusk (?) – a salute to Hegel – and we are supplied “wisdom” with the rest of the film on the nuances of a hell/heaven world of a tech-enabled landscape awash in dreary rain-soaked urban intencity – but only at dusk – when the owl of Minerva will fly (too late to learn from the lessons?).

First let me state the textual dynamite for this post (one of many to follow) on the Hermeneutics of a Post-Aging World – which basically will sustain the discourse on the possibility of a “post-aging” world whereby via the very optimistic possibilities associated with the efflorescence of technology (e.g., biomechanics, artificial intelligence, the singularity, etc.) will not only make senescence negligible (see Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS)  - Dr Aubrey de Grey), but also make aging moot and all of its attending complications (in theory). And furthermore (but with ultimate finality) mortality will become…..well, mortal !   The death of death. The end of aging and of finitude.

Maybe. We shall see. But is when engaging in speculative science there is bound to be lots of heresy and provocation – and of course – roguish statements about where are we are going (futurism) based on where we are at – which is always dangerous, reckless, exciting, and interesting. 

The catalyst was a singular (but there are many others) news report from of an aging workshop run by the International Longevity Center (ILC) which produces some solid and timely materials in our current (presentification of gerontology) representation of aging both nationally (US) and internationally. I recommend that you review their website for more info on policy issues and for the conprehensive reports on a variety of topics (via PDF downloads) . So the title of the news article was,

“Nix sedentary life, live to 100: Expert” by  Shannon Proudfoot for the Canwest News Service (June 1, 2009) – and the article went on to briefly describe the talk by Robert Fogel, a business professor at the University of Chicago, who basically projected that half of today’s undergraduate students will live to see their 100th birthday, provided they find some way to counteract their sedentary, tech-enabled lifestyle. I guess I also learned that Fogel left out the gerontology professors who would be teaching in the class with the undergraduate students {never thought about seeing the next century – until now ! – thanks Fogel for the not so subtle reminder; but I guess Ray Kurzweil is thinking differently ?}.

Fogel said that, 

“The future health of the IT generation is quite bright, provided that they adopt an appropriate lifestyle to go with their new technological opportunities,”

Proudfoot went on to report that,

“Today’s undergrads have grown up in relatively healthy, disease-free environments even from the time they were developing in utero, Fogel says, and that’s given them stronger bodies to withstand health challenges through the rest of their lives. On top of that, he believes medical advances will mean increasingly effective ways to treat and prevent the chronic illnesses that most frequently truncate people’s lives now.”

You can read the rest of the story at http://www.calgaryherald.com/Health/sedentary+life+live+Expert/1652221/story.html - 

but stay with me for now.

             Here is the fuse to the dynamite: It is ironic that many of the transhuman, posthuman, and anti-aging proponents envision the ultimate disconnect from the body whereby intelligence is no longer tied to carbon-based units (that would be “us” – presently) but will in the future – via disembodification – will become silicon based – and intelligence necessarily seperate from the flesh and blood (yes the grey matter too) {I did not say anything about WISDOM, but that is another gray matter – sorry I could not help myself there). Here we have a story where the tech-enabled generation of youth are vulnerable to becoming hyper-geriatrified because they are too engaged in sedentary behaviors centered around all things tech. So on one hand, the only way to get to the SINGULARITY (see R. Kurzweil) is to push the tech mode in hyperdrive, but with too much behind the “computer screen time” – one is bound to atrophy and decay (shall I say frailty and prematurely geriatric) because the body (soma) likes activity and action. Perhaps, the point is that in a post-aging world we will not need exercise and activity or action – only thought – only the cerebral – the neocortex rules, not the bicep or the quads. But in the mean time, it appears that immortality will not be gained by sitting as though a couch potato – rather, as long as we are both flesh and blood – cognitive and transcendental – we are still human (not more than) and in the immortal words taken from the movie Blade Runner -

“It’s too bad she won’t live; but then again, who does?” (not even the replicants)

Which I take to be our lesson – no one lives forever. And even if you did – are you then “human” – or posthuman – or replicant – or humanoid – or transhuman, or just really, really bored human. Just think: American Idol – forever !  (that’s the point I embrace the freedom of finitude – pull the plug: on the TV, LCD, Plasma screen – and on me).

100 years ? Ok, check, you got it. But please do ask this: What will be the status of your additional years? (whether they be 50 or 100 extra) Disability-free? Chronic conditions? Quality of life? We can live longer – but what is the difference —- when wanting to have a life that matters – longer. In that case, one year is the same as a thousand – if it matters. If it don’t – then infinity will not solve your problems or desires or illusions. Immortality is kinda of long time – to think and dwell and reflect… are you ready ? While it is possibly true that procrastination would rule the “day” (day – whatever that would mean) – as I have forever to do anything, I suppose, what I actually hope for  is the case in an post-aging world is basic and follows the wisdom of Joseph Addison:

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and something to hope for.

If that is the case regardless of 50 years, 100 years, 200 years, 500 years, or an infinite possibility – then let me think about that some more. But until then, get off your chair while you are reading this blog – and go exercise – go outside – or go for a swim in the water – before it all goes virtual. 

Goodnight – as my neurons think of the possibility of dreams that are electric – and then are they mine? – or implanted there ?  

ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz 

Thanks, Scott D. Wright

Senescence and Summer 2009 (and beyond): Heat and Hyperthermia

Heat Stress and Aging:

We are fast approaching the summer of 2009. And it is hard to believe that so much time has gone since July 1995.

July 1995?

Almost 14 years ago and in our country during that summer there was a brutal heat wave that had gathered intensity and settled in over the expansive metropolitan area of Chicago, Illinois. The resulting effect – and impact – was devastating and it shocked the nation with how heat had come to claim so many (over 700 people) in that short span of time. With all of the focus on macro-scale weather events like HURRICANES or the acute devastation of TORNADO – but  we forget about HEAT- heat as a major factor in weather-related disasters.

Extreme heat heat kills more Americans annually than any other natural disaster. 

As the globe warms up, scientists expect ever more heat waves like the one that killed more than 700 people—many elderly and living alone—in Chicago in the summer of 1995. And this is exactly what  was later discovered through a careful analysis of the “natural” and the social ecological factors of the urban setting became the basis for the book, Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, by Eric Klinenberg.

(see http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/443213in.html) for an extensive interview with the author)

Klinenberg specifically indicated how it was the elderly – especially the elderly that lived alone – who were the most vulnerable to heat.

Before we will briefly examine the social ecological factors, we need to continue onward and indicate the dramatic impact of hypothermia as it relates to morbidity and mortality – and how the elderly are more at risk with this kind of event. And this public health issue is NOT just an event isolated in the US.

You will recall that France experienced a record-breaking heat wave in August 2003 (see  Fouillet A, Rey G, Laurent F, Pavillon G, Bellec S, Guihenneuc-Jouyaux C, Clavel J, Jougla E, Hémon D; “Excess mortality related to the August 2003 heat wave in France.” Int Arch Occup Environ Health. 2006 Oct;80(1):16-24

 Fouillet et al (2003) reported that,

“all the French regions were affected by this heat wave, which resulted in an excess of 14, 800 deaths. The increase in the number of excess deaths followed the same pattern as the increase in temperatures. The victims were mainly elderly women older than 75 years. Excess mortality at home and in retirement institutions was greater than that in hospitals. The mortality of widowed, single and divorced subjects was greater than that of married people. Deaths directly related to heat, heatstroke, hyperthermia and dehydration increased massively. Cardiovascular diseases, ill-defined morbid disorders, respiratory diseases and nervous system diseases also markedly contributed to the excess mortality.”

And then later research by Kim Knowlton, Miriam Rotkin-Ellman, Galatea King,Helene G. Margolis, Daniel Smith, Gina Solomon, Roger Trent, and Paul English followed up with the heat wave in California with an article titled, “The 2006 California Heat Wave: Impacts on Hospitalizations and Emergency Department Visits” in Environ Health Perspect. 2009 January; 117(1): 61–67. During the heat wave, the researchers noted 16,166 excess ED visits and 1,182 excess hospitalizations occurred statewide. Knowlton (2009) et al indicated that,

“Besides older residents with recognized heat vulnerabilities, children showed significant elevated risk for some morbidities. Strategies to prevent heat-related illness during extreme heat events should include messages and information dissemination targeted toward parents, caregivers, and other guardians of young children, continued outreach to the elderly and especially to socially isolated individuals, and geographically targeted messages about health risks of heat exposure and heat stress. By better understanding heat wave effects on morbidity, local communities can develop appropriate public health interventions and increase their adaptive capacity to cope with heat waves when they happen—both today and in a globally warming future.”

As Kovats and Hajat (20080 have indicated (see “Heat stress and public health: a critical review”; in Annu Rev Public Health. 2008;29:41-55),

“Heat is an environmental and occupational hazard. The prevention of deaths in the community caused by extreme high temperatures (heat waves) is now an issue of public health concern. The risk of heat-related mortality increases with natural aging, but persons with particular social and/or physical vulnerability are also at risk. Important differences in vulnerability exist between populations, depending on climate, culture, infrastructure (housing), and other factors. Public health measures include health promotion and heat wave warning systems, but the effectiveness of acute measures in response to heat waves has not yet been formally evaluated. Climate change will increase the frequency and the intensity of heat waves, and a range of measures, including improvements to housing, management of chronic diseases, and institutional care of the elderly and the vulnerable, will need to be developed to reduce health impacts.”

The connection between the degree (or lack thereof) of social capital and well-being (or in contrast: vulnerability and risk) has been established and elobroated upon, epscially with the trends in the US by Robert Putnam (see Bowling Alone) and others.

Thus, we have had – and appears will continue to have – an unfortunate triangulation of demographic, social and natural forces (and events) that can expose segments our society (e.g., elderly who live alone with minimal social capital) to even greater risk if (or as many would say: not if, but when) catastrophe occurs either by natural or human made- disasters (or some combination of both).

We have Harrell  (2008) has done a nice job of articulating the cocenr of challenge of older adults who live alone in our midst – in her article, The Elderly: Living and Dying Alone.

“Many elderly people in cities, live alone, with their windows sealed or nailed shut because they are so afraid of crime-afraid that someone will break in, and they will be defenseless. So many are poor and sick, hardly able to care for themselves, with no family or friends, and are often dealing with some level of confusion or dementia. When the elderly die, they usually die alone, just as they have lived in their later years. Sometimes they die at home alone, and sometimes they die in hospitals, or nursing homes. It is such a tragic end for a person who has given so much of their lifetime to others, and yet, when it is their time to depart, there is no one to be there for them. Many times their bodies are not discovered for a long time, because no one cares, or notices that they are missing.

They are sometimes referred to as “elder orphans.” It is estimated, by Kenneth W. Wachter, Ph. D., Chair of the Department of Demography, at the University of California at Berkeley, that “the number of Americans between the ages of 70 and 85, without a living spouse, without any biological or stepchildren, and without living siblings or half-siblings, will total more than 2 million people by the year 2030.” It is an increasing problem as the Baby Boomers age, due to their low birth rate, and their longer lifespan. After age 80, Alzheimer’s disease increases to between 22% and 40%. This cognitive impairment, leads to the elderly without family, being unable to care for themselves properly.”

(for more information see http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/529693/the_elderly_living_and_dying_alone.html?cat=12

And Klinenberg went on to write about how community organization is essential for disaster preparation. Klinenberg (2008) in an article for The New York Times (July 6, 2008) said that,

“The two deadliest recent US environmental disasters, Katrina and the 1995 Chicago heat Wave, highlighted the vulnerability of socially isolated people, for whom the safe house becomes a tomb. Efforts to build strong, durable connections among neighbors, local organizations, businesses and government agencies will help improve community resilience in crises of all kinds.”

(see  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/magazine/06wwln-idealab-t.html  for full article)

      

The are several key points to be prepared for addressing the challenges of hyperthermia in persons of all ages, but as the blog focuses in on ages issues, we highlight vulnerable older adults – in our families, neighborhoods, and communities in this summer 2009 – and beyond.

Heat can be extremely dangerous, but there are many factors that contribute to hypothermia. Please be on the lookout – and help to monitor those older adults who are living alone – and espcially those who may those who may be cut off from social capital and social resources. The following represent excellent resources for further information. 

thanks, Scott Wright

The EPA Aging Initiative has two great resources to check into:

      

http://epa.gov/aging/resources/factsheets/itdhpfehe/index.htm

http://www.epa.gov/naturalevents/extremeheat.html

http://www.nia.nih.gov/HealthInformation/Publications/hyperthermia.htm

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/443213in.html

http://www.bt.cdc.gov/disasters/extremeheat/elderlyheat.asp

http://www.infography.com/content/556376659104.html

The Fountain of Youth at Subprime; Baby Boomers as Hedge Fund – {The anti-aging enterprise}

Youth is a wonderful thing.  What a crime to waste it on children. ~ George Bernard Shaw

For a small piece of paper it carries a lot of weight Oh, that mean, mean, mean, mean, mean green – Almighty Dollar!
~ For the Love of Money – The O’Jays

Like a preacher stealing hearts, At a traveling show, For love or money money money
~ Desire – U2

I figured out one thing.  If you’re growing older or getting younger it really doesn’t make any difference.  Whichever way you’re going you have to make the most of what this is.
~ Benjamin Button – from the movie, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. Screenplay by Eric Roth. Based on the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

            Prologue

There are serendipitous events – meaningful intersections – that help to keep the momentum going when writing about the various topics that weave into the domain of the aging experience. For example, the following text indented below was copied directly from a website (complete with a Twitter pitch!) – and the link (the URL) was captured by the many alerts that I have set up to bring in information as it intersects the topic of aging. But first a quick preface (in the prologue no less).

What I hope to achieve with this post is to roguishly examine the topics of “anti-aging medicine” (and a few of the attendant concordant terms such as: prolongevity) – all of which brings up the prospect of negligible senescence (or SENS via Aubrey de Grey who poses the question: Must we age? – which begs the question on just about any other ‘issue’ associated with living – Must we pay taxes? Do I have to stop at red lights? Can I have it all? ) – or better yet (or worse?) – and can I go ahead and say it? – Can we achieve IMMORTALITY? Which ontologically speaking – may not be the same as reversing aging per se; in other words, one hopes not to get any older, but rather to stay “young” (whatever that means – what chrono set point is that?) because let us not forget that we humans do want to have our cake and eat it too.
                

So reader beware: I also plan to use the descriptors of the films from the Matrix trilogy as inspiration and heuristic to frame the development and serve as guideposts along way and to establish the need for a critical re-examination of the whole project that claims to be “anti-aging.” Why the need? Because I want to propose that the enterprise is not going to slow down nor will it stop given the presence of two major motivational forces that serve as both catalyst and lubricant to keep the enterprise moving – rapidly.

1. The “scientific process” – persons who seek to unveil the hidden, the mysterious, the unknown, the challenging, the secrets, to simply know “it” – and perhaps to be either the first or at least a significant part of the legacy (team work) that would lead to the discovery of the raw and primary factor(s) that would slow, stop, and reverse the aging process. I have scientific process above in scare quotes here to indicate the highly charged atmosphere that surrounds this activity – what does it mean to be involved in a scientific process such that some degree of legitimacy and provisional ‘truth’ is established for colleagues in the field and for the lay person (aka “the consumer”)?
2. The aging baby boomers. Read – their drive, their motivation, their desire, their money, their narcissism, their legacy, their gullibility, their relentless search for the ‘dream’, their final push to “get it right’, and their fetish to finally create and exist in a human-derived nirvanic garden of eden that has eliminated disease, aging, and death.

             

Thus my concern that between the two forces we have heavy potential for the anti-aging movement to see the fountain of youth as an opportunity for subprime activity (to get people to buy into it – when there other concrete higher priorities here and now; my point and as appetizer: To me this akin to the debate about space missions – we can do it – but is it all worth it? – and to what end ? Can we afford it – or is it a necessary debt to embrace because the benefits are so obvious and there is little risk). The other blunt issue is how the baby boomer cohort may be seen as one big cash cow – ripe for the taking – the mother of all hedge funds.

                

I also want to submit a working framework to tackle the dynamics of the enterprise will follow a sequential and incremental breadcrumb trail that goes something like this:

The Aging Enterprise > Revisited > Reloaded >Revolution

which sounds very familiar – because it follows the title sequence for the Matrix trilogy films – but here I use to facilitate textual examination and discourse on where we have been – and where we/are are/we going (?) {that can be both statement and question}.

I want to present the catalyst – the key event of the information first, then I will share with you some commentary related to the topic at hand {the anti-aging market} Here then is the blurb that caught me eye and lit the fuse for my reflections – and hopefully our discussion.

Global market for anti-aging products and services worth $274.5 billion in 201305.08.2009 – GLOBAL MARKET FOR ANTI-AGING PRODUCTS AND SERVICES WORTH $274.5 BILLION IN 2013

Wellesley, Mass—According to a new technical market research report, ANTI-AGING PRODUCTS AND SERVICES: THE GLOBAL MARKET (HLC060A) from BCC Research (www.bccresearch.com), the global market for anti-aging products and services was worth $162.2 billion in 2008. This will increase to $274.5 billion in 2013, for a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.1%.
The market is broken down into segments for appearance, disease and fitness. The disease treatment segment currently has the largest share of the market, worth $66.0 billion in 2008. This should increase at a CAGR of 12.5% to reach $119.2 billion in 2013. 
The appearance segment has the second largest share of the market, worth $64.4 billion in 2008. This segment is expected to generate $105.4 billion in 2013, for a CAGR of 10.4%. 
The fitness segment has the third largest market share and was worth $31.8 billion in 2008. This is expected to reach $49.8 billion in 2013, for a CAGR of 9.4%. 

The appearance market consists of the facial rejuvenation, skin rejuvenation, hair care and body shaping markets. The disease management market consists of preventive and reactive health care for all the diseases of aging such as joint and bone health, Alzheimer’s, sexual dysfunction, metabolic disorders, eye and cardiovascular diseases. The fitness market consists of gym, spa and massage services. The majority of the products include facial care, skin care, hair care, drugs and supplements, nutraceuticals, cosmetic equipment and fitness equipment. The majority of the services market includes cosmetic invasive and noninvasive services, complementary and alternative medicine therapies, bioregenerative services, spa treatments and massages, and gym services. The services market accounts for a major portion of the global anti-aging market, or around 54.2% in 2008, and will increase to 55.6% in 2013, for a CAGR 11.7%. The products market will increase from $73.3 billion in 2008 to $199.9 billion in 2013, for a CAGR 10.4%

First, some observations:

1) I do not know how you feel about the numbers being thrown around in the news item above, but given recent policy decisions at the federal level – a billion here and a billion there – $275 billion does not seem to carry the same gravity of an impressive jaw-dropping amount especially after having to (or at least to try) getting a grip on such sky-high amounts of money such as $700-billion federal banking bailout or our mega-trillion deficit in the US, but still – $ 275 billion is significant and substantial in its own right;

2) What I was impressed with was the wide net that was cast which purports to capture or represent the anti-aging market including the segments of disease, appearance, and fitness. In fact, I was both impressed and incredulous over such a claim that disease-oriented products and services would be under the rubric (or the matrix) of the anti-aging market.

In other words, I am still trying to understand what IS NOT a part of the anti-aging market (?) – Is there a boundary or firewall to demarcate “anti-aging” services and products from other types of activities that address aging issues but do not necessarily state explicitly that they are “anti” so instead we might have – just good ole – regular – traditional – conventional – status quo – market for dealing with transitions of aging.

But perhaps that sounds like caving-in – throwing in the towel so to speak – that if you are not “anti” (and read: progressive and bucking the status quo) – you are part of the “establishment” that is “for” aging (?). I can hear it now: “Sure, you say are for health and well-being, but pull the curtain back, and you still find those who are really the “biomedical disease model types” that are pessimistic and more into treating chronic conditions – than preventing them.

The “establishment” are (perhaps) all those who focus on career building (as you shall soon read – a soft connection to the scholarship of Carol Estes on the “Aging Enterprise” circa 1993; see next subheading below) on the “problems” of aging, rather than those in “anti-aging” who are more interested in the “solutions” of aging (i.e., stopping or reversing the aging process).

But, I digress somewhat here. We will get back to this boundary issue further into this post;

and 3) Now what was missing in this news blurb above was the explicit primary audience to which the commercial products could be (will be) targeted for – that is, the AGING BABY BOOMERS – and it is interesting to consider whether the primary audience (boomers) is asking for (seeking out) the products so that the “market” can react to and catch up to the demands of the baby boomers or is some or all of it based on the assumption that the baby boomers will react to advertising and commercial plugs that highlight “anti-aging” and thus cater to the assumed profile of this cohort as – extremely interested in anti-aging products (but they just don’t know it yet, thus most boomers are to be viewed as gullible and an easy mark to peddle anti-aging products to) or that it is all a perfect storm of outlandish vanity, and a desire to be healthy and “younger” by appearance (for example, the plethora of skin care products to make you “look” younger – at least on the surface) and by biomedical status

(for example, as Chopra & Simon did claim in their book [Grow Younger, Live Longer, 2001] that if you follow his recommendations, you can “reset” your Biostat {biological, or functional age} up to fifteen years younger than your chronological age) and that the boomers are more than willing to dedicate a significant part of the income/assets to this pursuing this endeavor in working (and buying) their way to (and into) the “fountain of youth.”

                     

I continue on with more detailed information from the BCC Research (www.bccresearch.com) website which specifically (and explicitly) indicates the “rationale for the analysis” (please note that this is NOT the full report):

REASONS FOR DOING THE STUDY
Anti-aging Products and Services: The Global Market (Report Code: HLC060A)
The anti-aging market is categorized distinctively into “boomers” (the population born between 1946 and 1965) and the youth anti-aging market. These markets differ in terms of products and service offerings, market structure, and positioning. This report has been focused on the boomer anti-aging market, which is a more mature market and controls 75% of the total anti-aging market.
The worldwide population of 200 million boomers is growing at 38%, compared to the general population, which is growing at 13%, making the boomer population more attractive for anti-aging companies. Anti-aging companies need to adapt different strategies while tapping the boomer market, which varies with race, sex, income level, family status, young and old boomers, insurance status, and distribution channels.
The boomers market has been the largest opportunity today in the world, mainly for their high disposable income. Therefore, all companies in the cosmetic, pharma and health care, biotech, medspa, and fitness services are strategizing hard to tap the double-digit growing boomer anti-aging market. In the current economic turmoil, the anti-aging boomer market can help the economy to grow and benefit the respective stakeholders. All the existing studies and third-party market reports do not provide a comprehensive understanding of the anti-aging market specifically targeting boomers. In this report, we provide full market estimates of the anti-aging market for boomers. The reports available do not cover the entire gamut of products and services under anti-aging; mainly, these reports do not provide information on services.
INTENDED AUDIENCES
The intended audience includes all the stakeholders of the anti-aging market: drug and supplement companies, cosmetic companies, pharmaceutical (pharma) and health care, biotech companies, medspa companies, physical fitness companies, and nutrition companies. This includes manufacturers, retailers and super retailers, technology providers, and research and development (R&D) companies.

               Perhaps I have overlooked something along the way, but it appears to me that this emphasis on the “market” – the commoditization” of products and services to create the ‘anti-aging’ experience is bound (and determined) to facilitate a tiered (or caste) system of the haves and the have-nots when it comes to accessing the services and products. In other words, not all baby boomers will have this disposable income to spend – nor can we assume that even if they did, would they necessarily want to spend their money in this fashion: on anti-aging services and products.

   Furthermore, I am still waiting to hear more on the potential scenario of where ONLY the elite –well-resourced and financially deep – may have the capacity to “buy” or pay for such services that claim to slow, stop, or reverse the aging process. The news blurb above speaks more to the investment potential – the venture capital possibilities – in benefiting (profiteering) from the projected sales and revenue created from the anti-aging market. When you think about it more – and deeper – this news blurb is pointing in the direction of the supply and demand route – and I wonder, or at least I am willing to hear and discuss more about how all of this anti-aging medicine activity will then benefit the commonwealth – the citizens – directly. Sure, I could hear about reduced costs (like the DRGs from the past) in terms of health care expenditures – over time and for certain segments of our society, but I ask: will this supposed rising tide of benefits from anti-aging medicine and all of these products and services – lift all the boats (ever-body?) or only those boats that have the income (and ability) to actually leave the harbor? There is also the rationale that any investments by private companies and corporations have to protect their interests and seek to maximize their profits for their “stockholders” (or is that stakeholders?) – and turn a profit for the general well-being of the company.

But again, with all of the marketing, publicity, hype, and promise of anti-aging medicine/services and the projected revenue to be generated, the money spent (or invested) has to come from somebody – and their wallets.

The questions that I have an interest in related to this – are: 1) Is the $275 billion (or so) spent going to amount to a significant change in the quality-of-life (having a life) whether one lives an additional two more years or twenty? If you can reset your aging clocks – then what? What is gained? More time? Time for what? If you were to slow, stop, or reverse aging, what are the implications of that monumental shift in the life course structure (and trajectory) for our social-cultural-ecological resources? – And 2) Aside from the notion that science or medicine or technology will trump all else, is there also room for (and the possibility that) philosophy or ethics or existential discourse may matter on this topic? Or at least enter the equation? Or is it all reductionistic scientism {is that an oxymoron?} from here on out? For example, what is it? – What is the underlying motivation and desire for this historical and contemporary quest in our humanity that would seek to be engaged relentlessly (cross-culturally) in “anti-aging” activities? That is, is the attempt to re-invent or re-create the life course away from – for what some might refer to – as the natural order of organic existence and being – something that is inherently human after all? And therefore can be based on what human characteristic? Or attribute? Or process? Is it a biological drive? Or is it something psychoanalytic? Or it is beyond the bounds of rational (reasoned) thinking – and instead more a metaphysical goal and attraction that is more akin to an affinity with Greek mythology?  Perhaps the quest is Platonic – like existing in the cave of shadows – to break free of the chains that restrain our “true” potential – if we could only climb out into the light of longevity – and freedom to exist forever.

And should we take as prima facie data (“fact”) that if “we” (humanity as the ultimate arbiter of this decision) seek to break the cycle of pain, suffering, aging, death (sort of related to the Nirvana principle) – who are we to decide? Or who amongst us shall decide? Shall I defer to Aubrey de Grey? Shall I pledge allegiance to the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine {hereafter A4M – and “Established 1992.
A non-profit international medical society of 20,000 member physicians and scientists who believe answers to aging related disease are available now.” – from their web site} and then just get the hell out of the way and let the “pros” do their job in regenerative and biomedical technologies? Should I begin to trust that “they” have my “well-being” (physical and economic) in mind as they venture forth with capital and good intentions (naïve or otherwise) to discover the ‘scientific’ fountain of youth?

But I get the sense that a lot of the questions and concerns about anti-aging activities, outcomes, and side effects are neatly escorted to a back room where the speaker will politely tell us – “We will cross that bridge, when we get there.” But typically when we get there, the bridge has already been built – and burned down. I am not against the “American way” of enterprise and free-market ideologies (such as they are), but I detect that the greyhounds of science and technology have slipped the leashes – and are out of the gates – already chasing the rabbit of immortality. And this time it is different. This is not at the level of selling snake oil and bull testicles. This is a full-fledged industry – an entire enterprise at work – and as we have seen and read previously – the market related to “it” is not peanuts, especially with the working assumption that aging baby-boomers will demand that “we” do something about that nuisance – that bummer and bad trip experience of aging – and death. “Why haven’t we come up with a cure for that yet?” The invisible hand has got a new market segment to tap into – our quest, our desire, our dream, our fetish, our need and want – to eliminate and eradicate “it” – the new enemy to fulfillment and happiness and satisfaction in our culture – senescence.

And that makes me wonder further more about our current state of affairs within our country about decisions and priorities that affect all population segments of the life course: environmental, economic, military, medical, education, industrial, and technological. Is this where we want to go? Will this be our legacy as aging baby boomers? The quest to make sure we did it – we were the ones who broke the chain of generations. The search for the fountain of youth would mean that we refused to march into the abyss of frailty and morbidity. Yes! We are the dragon slayer and we have killed the beast that has haunted humanity for centuries upon centuries. No longer do we build edifices of religion, government, philosophy, art, and culture on the certainty of mortality – the finiteness of time – we can slow aging – reverse aging – and live forever – and let the chips fall where they may. We can all become the Curious Case of Benjamin Button – but with new spin: The Ordinary Case of Baby Boomers (or because we are boomers = The Extraordinary Case !) who all grow younger over time – and let everyone benefit from our willingness to become the pioneers into immortality. Don’t you see? We are doing it for you!  Everyone. Let someone else build the new paradigm of meaning and purpose – after all, we will have forever to figure it all out.

In fact, I can see it now: the aging baby boomers will have given us the ultimate gift of certain procrastination as we have no longer have the sense of hurry, there is no loss, no deadlines, no pain, no suffering, no end game at all; we will always have tomorrow. And what would you rather have? – The direction of youthful (a la Brad Pitt) progression? – Or morbidity and mortality associated with the end of a measly 80 years of life – or so. My guess would be that we want more – and both. We have made our preference very clear to all – youth without youth – eternal adolescence – healthy adulthood in perpetuity. And therein lies the heart of the issue – how to explain that preference? From where does it originate? And why? Is it a primordial drive within us to “naturally” define the aging process as the ultimate “fall”, a failure, a corruption, incredible loss, and chronic suffering. Well, because it is? And if it is – then we must overcome and defeat “it.” On one hand we could read Jean Amery’s “On Aging: Revolt and Resignation” and go into a funk because it is soooooooo depressing (albeit “real”) – Or you could pick up the numerous “cotton-candy” – “can do” optimistic books on aging that are apt to become best-sellers because they offer “the promise” of a “secret” that has been kept from us – the promise of eternal wellness – if you would only do the following (after buying the book or the tapes or the download) x, y, and z.

Yes, it is unfair – death is. It is a bitch that aging has to happen. Life is unduly truncated and perhaps we all want to believe that “science” will be the weapon – the ultimate tool – at our disposal to finally conquer death. And so to be rid of all things gerontological and geriatric would be….well, might as well say it – the deification of humanity. We are the gods that have reversed more than some original transgression – we have arrived back into the Garden of Eden. We have disconnected the awful burden of being human – to know that we will age and die. And so a human being – would forever be-ing (sorry Heidegger fans, I can tell you are getting antsy over your Dasein at this point – a being-in-time would no longer be in time – but outside of the time we used to be “thrown into” – now we appear and stay relentlessly in existence).

Although it would be easy to bring up cultural stories that offer “warnings” about seeking such a powerful attribute and outcome – such as the story of Daedalus and Icarus – I am thinking more of the entity of Gollum (aka baby boomers) in Lord of the Rings trilogy – seeking and desiring “the ring” (aka reversing aging – perpetual youth) – “So bright… so beautiful… ah, Precious.”), I will stick to the philosophical road for now as we contemplate what Robert Butler has termed, “The Longevity Revolution.”

Finally, a quick look at the person who wrote the original analysis for BCC Research (www.bccresearch.com).

                        ANALYST CREDENTIALS

The author of the report, Sandeep Sugla, is a chief research analyst with a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Shivaji University and over 8 years of experience in life science. He has been the author for reports such as telemedicine, sales force effectiveness, nutraceuticals, and new revenue models of pharma in the debacle of blockbusters.

            Okay, that is some interesting background and credentials. And here is my point by paraphrasing Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “What’s anti-aging to him?” {I ask} “Or he to anti-aging that he should care about the topic” Cui bono?  Well, who knows – which is my last reflection on this section in particular. Caveat emptor for anyone who would read this information – and at least Mr. Sugla (and BCC) inserted the “Disclaimer” at the end – because if there is any take home message for aging baby boomers (or anybody from any cohort for that matter) it is to beware and be-aware; to be cautious about any claim and product and service in the domain of anti-aging medicine or service. Furthermore, any claim to having the crystal ball on baby boomers as they age will have to be taken and interpreted with a skeptical approach. The baby boomers are not a hedge fund and to the best of my knowledge nor should the cohort be treated as though they (as a collective) were like Wall Street derivatives.

There are many possible angles to discuss with this “news item” referred to above – both good and bad – positive and negative. But my approach is more philosophical in the sense that I am still trying to understand the core motivation for humans when considering the allure of living longer – perhaps forever – and how that possibility would really change anything different than it is now – or what we currently have to confront as a living being – an entity that would rather “grow younger, live longer” (see Chopra, 2001) – in essence reverse aging – which appears at first to be against the natural order of things as we have to come know organic-multicellular life as having a beginning – and an end. And in between there is maturation, procreation, and then ultimately senescence. While I realize there are persuasive rationales and many arguments for pro-longevity and “anti-aging”, I am (personally) trying to understand the primary and the core need and want that goes beyond or transcends the casual and flip comments that are borderline banal or reminiscent of some Woody Allen lines:

I am not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.

The “Aging Enterprise” Revisited (again), Reloaded, and Revolution

            My goal with this final segment of the Rogue Scholarship on Aging post on this topic is to take the titles of some academic articles and mash them up with the titles of the movies from The Matrix trilogy (especially the titles of the last two movies) in order to examine the “enterprise” (the market – the business – the commoditization – the profiteering) of aging experience, but more accurately, the business of “anti-aging.” And yet, the ultimate goal here is not to argue for or against “anti-aging medicine” (as you will see, there is plenty of literature already available that addresses both sides – and then some), rather I am more interested in the philosophical underpinnings that can help us understand (and I’m not sure if it can explain, but we shall see) why humans (our species Homo sapiens) have the drive, the desire, the fetish, the obsession, and the compulsion, and the motivation to seek out the discoveries and the purported “medicines” that would slow, stop, and even reverse the aging process. In other words, I am curious about the analysis of the WHY – and less so on the scientific merits or limitations of whether or nor we can possible live forever by finding a “cure” for aging – and then supposedly defeating the ultimate inevitability of life itself – that is, to conquer death. I will begin the examination and review of this section by unpacking the meaning of the subheading of this posting:

The “Aging Enterprise” Revisited (again), Reloaded, and Revolution

            This subheading reflects my desire at mashing up a series of scholarly publications on the “Aging Enterprise” (see Estes, 1993; Moody) and then slightly morphing it into a new perspective on the examination of the so called “anti-aging medicine” domain by using the titles of Matrix movies (reloaded and revolutions) as a way of looking over – and through – the matrix of the issues involved in this topic that relates to the “fountain of youth” and “anti-aging” medicine and services and the possibility of “ending aging” (see Aubrey de Grey, 2007).

            One of key elements of this sub-section, but really of the entire blog post, is the notion of the “Aging Enterprise” which we first hear of in the literature with Carol Estes’ book, “The Aging Enterprise” (1979).

And then there was the follow-up publication. There are a handful of journal articles (and only a handful) that, in my opinion, have presented a scholarly and provocative treatise contra to the prevailing and received view within the field of aging, which in effect has served as a Kafka-like “ice-axe” to break apart the frozen sea within us – or in other words, an article that serves as a good ole butt-kickin’ to jolt the status quo and grab the commencement regalia by the collar and shake the devil out of the pontificating old poops in the academy. When I first read this one particular article (out of the handful) I was shaken from my Kantian dogmatic slumber (and my graduate student dumber) and I thought perhaps, just perhaps, I had just read some Khunian paradigm-breaker that knocked over the applecart of normal science.

The article was authored by Carol Estes as a “follow-up” article (“The Aging Enterprise Revisited”) published in The Gerontologist (Vol. 33, No. 3, 292-298) to her original work The Aging Enterprise (the book) that was published in 1979. The article was a refreshing (and startling provocation in some regards) antidote to the received view found in many of the textbooks and readings assigned in the academic courses on aging, but what I found most engaging (an epiphany – illumination!) in the article was the philosophical exploration of the “social construction of reality” processes involved in treating and solving the “problems” of the aging experience. In other words, Estes forced the question (in a positive confrontational manner) upon the field of aging: Whose problem? What problem? Her point was this:

“These constructions of aging and the social policies that result not only reflect, but also reproduce existing social class, gender, and racial and ethnic disparities among the old. That is, social policy on aging does little to alter or disturb the relations of power or the distribution of economic and other resources in the society.” (emphasis from original article).

And I remember thinking: What? Who me? The gerontologist-to-be? Did I do that? Am I knowingly or unknowingly contributing to the very problem I wish to address and alleviate? And so, I forever after reading that article became much more aware of the insidious messages, outlooks, attitudes, and behaviors that might weave into the discourse and the policies that relates to aging. I would see the reality of aging in a whole new way – a different way. Thus, my tie in with The Matrix movie (# 1 – written by Andy Wachowski & Larry Wachowski) and from the very first film, we have the essence of the now classic scene between Morpheus and Neo in terms of epiphany, exposure illumination, and the “true” reality conjured up by Baudrillard, Lacan, Badiou, Zizek and a host of others in terms of our understanding (however possible that is) of reality and the significance of being (or take Heidegger’s Dasien). The impact of the scene was much like perspective in the text of Estes: a cold bucket of water in your face to wake up from a long night’s sleep – the jolt, the adrenaline producing snap of the brain –the mind – at full alert as the lighthouse cuts through the fog – and one can see clearly the shoreline, the horizon, the sky, and all of the stars as the FULL picture – the entire map is suddenly (and finally) revealed because all before it was an illusion, a representation, an orchestration of constructs and slogans that masked the essence of what really is.

    Morpheus: I imagine that right now you’re feeling a bit like Alice. Tumbling down the rabbit hole?        

    Neo: You could say that.

    Morpheus: I can see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he’s expecting to wake up. Ironically, this is not far from the truth. Do you believe in fate, Neo?

    Neo: No.

    Morpheus: Why not?

    Neo: ‘Cause I don’t like the idea that I’m not in control of my life.

    Morpheus: I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know, you can’t explain. But you feel it. You felt it your entire life. That there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there. Like a splinter in your mind — driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I’m talking about?

    Neo: The Matrix?

    Morpheus: Do you want to know what it is?

    (Neo nods his head.)

    Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere, it is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, or when go to church or when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

    Neo: What truth?

    Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind. (long pause, sighs) Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back.

    (In his left hand, Morpheus shows a blue pill.)



    Morpheus: You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. (a red pill is shown in his other hand) 



You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. (Long pause; Neo begins to reach for the red pill) Remember — all I am offering is the truth, nothing more.

    (Neo takes the red pill and swallows it with a glass of water)

            And the red pill is our sign and signifier for getting to essential truth – the core essence of what is behind the constructed reality of our social programs and services for older adults.

But the red pill (i.e., a certain amount of legitimacy – scientific protocol – skepticism – testing – peer review) is needed again because the enterprise has “reloaded” into another industry – another social construction of our wants, desires, and searching for the elusive (or should I say illusive? – but of course Aubrey de Grey believes reversing aging is very much a reality – in our lifetime) holy grail of life – the fountain of age in a materialistic culture where a certain amount of capital can buy you products, services, and medicine that can ensure you everything (assuming this is pretty much all that you need) you want: growing younger, ending aging – and the Faustian bargain is no longer a “bargain” – you can have it, eternal life, not for your soul, but for your wallet, and then some. The enterprise had reloaded and it seemed everyone had came out with barrels blazing.

            And so the “war” began. Which also carries some Lacanian interpretative (via Zizek) potential with the rich symbolism of conflict between humans and machines al la Terminator movies – and the psychology of desire and language and “the Other” as we confront various schemas and reports and publications that claim the ‘truth’ – or at least scientific legitimacy on what is REALLY is going on “out there.” Because there is a lot at stake: profit, expenditures, careers, and of course ~ ego (oh, and did I mention the promise of immortality? – the long sought after and sought for prize by too many explorers and royalty and pirates to mention)

            So what is really going on in the battle and what are the positions of the stakeholders, the scientists, and the consumers? Like a work of art on the gallery wall – it appears that much is in eye of the beholder and not so much for beauty, but rather who is claiming that they are on the “right” versus all others who are labeled with a variety of derogatory titles (and categories to put them into).

            Let me conveniently begin with a report back in 2001 (the timing was the day before 9/11) from United States General Accounting Office titled, “Health Products for Seniors – ‘Anti-Aging Products Pose Potential for Physical and Economic Harm’.” (see GAO-01-1129 and GAO-01-1139T).

         Yikes ! When this report went before the Special Committee on Aging, U.S. Senate and it is the report from the GAO – the supposed (and hoped for) big-time arbiter of them all – with Accountability * Integrity * Reliability, then this sort of sets the benchmark, or does it? Well, sort of. It was only the first shot in the new aging enterprise revisited and reloaded.

            The battle between various scholars and researchers and disciplines (and disciples) heated up in the “Anti-Aging” domain with publications like (and see overall review by John Vincent, in Ageing & Society, 2003):

And so Harry Moody (among others) also took the concept and the shock value of the Estes article (again – in a positive manner) to examine the “new” emerging enterprise related to the domain of “anti-aging” with his publication in Generations – Winter 2004-05, “Silver Industries and the New Aging Enterprise,” (and see also the 2008 publication – http://assets.aarp.org/www.aarp.org_/articles/research/AgingEnterprise.pdf
It was in this publication that we begin to examine more closely the metamorphosis of the enterprise as it shifted into areas beyond (primarily) the bureaucracies (“the aging network”) and into the domain of the private, fee-for-service, profit-driven world of “anti-aging” services and medicine.

Moody (2004/05) elaborated the connection this way:

“It is more than twenty-five years now since Carroll Estes published her influential book The Aging Enterprise (1979), in which she described, and also criticized, the evolution of an aging human-service sector supported by government funding. Her book and her critique came at a historical moment when the human-service approach to an older population had reached its peak.”

And here Moody builds the bridge of the “new enterprise” (or Revisited – again)

“The problem is that if age brands are left entirely to emerging companies in Silver Industry sectors, then we’re in danger of getting products that respond to stereotypes and the lowest common denominator: businesses based on denial of aging rather than latent strengths of later life. Entrepreneurs, acting on their own, easily miss out on the accumulated knowledge and expertise that professionals in the field of aging have acquired over the past generation. As David Wolfe has shown in Ageless Marketing, too many companies approaching the “Mature Market” make huge mistakes and fail to provide the right products and services (Wolfe and Snyder, 2003; see also the article by Wolfe in this issue). Marketers too easily fall into a language distorted by the insidious power of ageism.        

The rise of “anti-aging medicine” is just one case in point. I have put quotation marks around this entire domain because, scientifically speaking, there is no such thing as anti-aging medicine, since there are no interventions (apart from caloric reduction) that have been shown to increase maximum lifespan and slow the biological process of aging, at least in nonhuman organisms. But whatever science may say, as Helen Dennis has noted in her article earlier in this issue, anti-aging medicine is thriving. To cite only one (dismaying) statistic: there are more M.D.s who are members of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine than there are members of the American Geriatrics Society. To be sure, there is a legitimate and very important debate about what regenerative medicine or “prolongevity” might mean in the future (Post & Binstock, 2004). But the emergence of anti-aging medicine is already an important lesson about the power of the marketplace in an aging society. Anti-aging products are brands based on ageism and age-denial.”

            But not every one was seeing the same picture – or story – on (and in) the anti-aging battlefront. For example, there was a strong rebuttal in the Journal of Gerontology: BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES (ã The Gerontological Society of America) 2005, Vol. 60A, No. 2, 139–141, a letter to the editor from a Michael J. Rae (of the Calorie Restriction Society – and please note: co-author with Aubrey de Grey with Ending Aging book that was to be published later in 2007) accused the journal (Journal of Gerontology) of “excessive pessimism in the ‘anti-aging medicine sections” which had several articles (see June/July 2004) by prominent scholars on the topic (excerpted from the letter – not the complete letter below),

To the Editor:       

I was greatly disappointed by the overwhelmingly negative assessment of the prospects for intervening in the aging process presented in the recent special sections on anti-aging medicine in the Journal (Part I, June 2004; Part II, July 2004). I must respectfully take the Guest Editors to task for presenting the unduly one-sided survey of the issue. All of the Guest Editors of these special sections are engaged in an ongoing (and entirely admirable) public crusade against the charlatanry of current ‘‘anti-aging’’ medical quackery. One wonders, however, if, in the process of incessant debate, they have lost sight of the wider context in which their specific battles are immersed, and of the widespread optimism within the legitimate biogerontological community on the feasibility of genuine intervention in the human biological aging process…The unconscious bias in choice of contributors was doubtless further exacerbated by the large overlap between the authors of individual articles and the guest editorship of the issue itself…In Part II—devoted to evaluating specific avenues toward intervention in the aging process—the Editors chose to primarily present articles devoted to a facile critique of the foibles of the current pseudoscientific ‘‘anti-aging’’ marketplace. While it is important for the conclusions of these articles to reach the lay public, the readership of a gerontological journal is already quite aware that neither growth hormone injections nor vitamin C capsules retard biological aging; their inclusion does not contribute to our understanding of the issues…The apparent feasibility of this panel of interventions led the authors to the conclusion ‘‘that indefinite postponement of aging—which we term ‘engineered negligible senescence’— may be within sight.” One has yet to hear a cogent rejoinder to these proposals from the ‘‘anti-aging” skeptics. Such a debate would have genuinely advanced our understanding of the technical and theoretical prospects and pitfalls of ‘‘anti-aging medicine.’’

            As you can see – there are points and counterpoints along this line and in other publications, letters, and reports there is tossing of verbal grenades from one side to other that carry labels such as: charlatan, quack, crusader, conservative, rogue, mainstream, maverick, traditionalist, and so on.

            And the war still goes on. However, in all the smoke and haze of battle, I did find the book edited by Stephen G. Post and Robert H. Binstock (2004)

The Fountain of Youth: Cultural, Scientific, and Ethical Perspectives (Oxford University Press) to be an outstanding overview of the issues – including what I think is most critical section of the book: Ethical and Social Perspectives on Radical Life Extension. Yeah, finally! This should be required reading for everybody – including all of the cheer-leaders for “anti-aging medicine” and the public – the consumers and taxpayers.

            Here is the overview of what the book addresses:

A wide variety of ambitions and measures to slow, stop, and reverse phenomena associated with aging have been part of human culture since early civilization. From alchemy to cell injections to dietary supplements, the list of techniques aimed at altering the processes of aging continues to expand. Charlatans, quacks, and entrpreneurs proffering anti-aging products and practices have always exploited uniformed customers and instilled doubt and apprehension toward practices intended to extend life. Recently, however, the pursuit of longevity has developed into a respectable scientific activity. Many biologists are substantially funded by the government and the private sector to conduct research that they believe will lead to effective anti-aging interventions. While many embrace this quest for “prolongevity”–extended youth and long life–others fear its consequences. If effective anti-aging interventions were achieved, they would likely bring about profound alterations in the experiences of individual and collective life. What if aging could be decelerated to the extent that both average life expectancy and maximum life span would increase by forty percent? What if all humans could live to be centenarians, free of the chronic diseases and disabilities now commonly associated with old age? What if modern scientists could find the modern equivalent to the Fountain of Youth that Ponce de Leon sought?

            Again, it is the - what if? - that concerns me the most; that is, the philosophical underpinnings of the why and the what for and the so what of this topic. I do not question the sincerity and the integrity of scientists like Aubrey de Grey (in fact, his book was indicated as the Rogue Scholarship on Aging book of the year) rather I want to hear more either from him (but I doubt we will get it) or his colleagues about the Ethical and Social Perspectives on Radical Life Extension. When I had the opportunity to hear Aubrey de Grey deliver his talk on his new book (at that time) at the University of Utah, I was delighted to see the roguishness of his approach, but he completely danced around the question from the audience about the “other side of the coin” – “the double-edged sword” of reversing aging in our lifetime. In essence, I remember something (de Grey’s answer) to the effect: that is not my concern, I leave that to others.

          The battle for hearts, minds, and souls in this war continued as Courtney Everts Mykytyn published the article, “Anti-aging medicine: A patient/practitioner movement to redefine aging”, in Social Science & Medicine (62), 643-653 who shared with us that, “…with dramatic embrace of future biotechnologies and disdain for current medical treatments of old age, anti-aging practitioners embrace a scientific revolutionary identity.” (emphasis mine) – Revolutionary – ah sounds like the next step >> Aging Enterprise Revolution! But actually, I envision the aging enterprise revolution to cut both ways, more on that later on. Mykytyn (2006) offers a more sympathetic viewpoint to those who are dedicated to anti-aging medicine (based on her interviews of the anti-aging practitioners) which counters the notion that they are cold, calculating, reductionistic, and profiteers,

“While the mission of anti-aging medicine involves treating aging biomedicoscientifically, involvement stories reveal that the anti-aging movement is based more than abolishing or retarding aging. Anti-aging medicine is grounded in a desire to use one’s skills as a health care practitioner toward curtailing suffering seen in aging, a distaste for current biomedical practice, and an identity in the revolutionary is hero. The growing anti-aging movement, populated by patient-practitioners, challenges perceptions of aging and expects broad changes in the very near future of biomedicine” (p. 652).

        In my opinion, we have left the RELOADED phase of this issue, and we have indeed entered into the REVOLUTION part of the sequence. Time for another red pill.

        As I mentioned before, I think the revolution that is emerging due to the debate on ‘anti-aging’ issues is fruitful and represents a maturation of the discourse and dialogue. I think it began with the book by Post and Binstock, the work by Harry Moody, and then just recently with the special volume in the Journal of Aging Studies, 22, 2008. I encourage you the reader to follow-up with this refreshing example of scholarship on the topic of the anti-aging enterprise and the point at which we have arrived – which is the  necessary cross-roads of the full spectrum and examination of (and pardon my Cajun French) – What the hell is going on in this enterprise?

            Beginning with the editorial, “The anti-ageing enterprise: Science, knowledge, expertise, rhetoric and values” by  John A. Vincent, Emmanuelle Tulle, and John Bond (2008) they offer this perspective:

“Our editorial outlines the nature of anti-ageing and its significance for the understanding of ageing and the condition of old age. It reviews the approaches from the existing literature and explains why it is necessary to widen the debate and explore the cultural significance of anti-ageing endeavours. We are concerned that, in its naturalisation of old age as a problematic biological process which can only be overcome by biology, the anti-ageing enterprise masks very important social and cultural issues which have hitherto been under-explored. The value of this volume lies in the fact that it is the first time those engaged in empirical social science research into the phenomenon have come together to present their data and analyses. The nine papers in the special edition are outlined and their contribution highlighted. These contributions enable us to move beyond debates simply based in a priori reasoning from established ethical and professional perspectives and into an understanding of how specific groups of people understand, respond to and seek to modify the process of ageing (p. 291).”

Wow, how refreshing and exactly what we need – now. The guest editors then go on to state their case for the necessity of the special volume on this topic:

“Indeed we posit that debates have so far been carried out largely within the terms of ‘scientific’ endeavour. Questions relating to the desirability of interfering with the process have been posed narrowly — for instance, what would be the impact of prolonging life on an already ageing population? What would be the socio-structural inequalities of access to anti-ageing interventions? At what point should we intervene in the process? To widen the debate significantly, we propose to explore the cultural significance of anti-ageing endeavours. We are therefore less interested in the feasibility of the science and more concerned to reveal three things:        

As editors we are ultimately concerned that, in its naturalisation of old age as a problematic biological process which can only be overcome by biology, the anti-ageing enterprise masks very important social and cultural issues which have hitherto been under-explored:

• Existential issues, ones that question the fundamental nature of the human condition. These questions include: What is old age? What is the purpose of life, and its different stages? Is life always preferable to death — is immortality desirable?

• Issues of ageism and the cultural, social and political status of older people. Should old age be considered a valued part of the life course or something to be abolished as soon as practicable?

• Issues which stem from the current advances in biology and bio-gerontology. What is biological ageing? Is it a single process or a variety of different processes? These issues are sometimes debated around the question of whether ageing should be considered to be a disease. What are the consequences of treating ageing as a disease? What are the priorities for research — fundamental biology or disease control?

• To what extent is a biological or medical model of old age an appropriate basis for policies for older people? Are there alternative models perhaps akin to the social model of disability that we should adopt and thus aspire to a more elder friendly society?

• Immediate personal issues, for example about lifestyle choices. What and how much should we eat? What exercise should we take? There are questions about preventive strategies of various kinds — what is effective in delaying the signs of ageing? What should the responsible consumer do in terms of living a satisfactory old age? How much should we demand that people regulate their behaviour and to what end?

The development of anti-ageing science and practice challenges us to consider how people should approach old age. Is it something to be avoided or something to be embraced? Is the anti-ageing enterprise part of the problem of ageism by prejudicially acting to segregate off old age and subject it to dissection, manipulation and control? Or, in contradistinction, should anti-ageing be considered as part of the resistance to ageism — as an effective way of overcoming the exclusion of the aged?

What is also at stake is the status of the body in our conceptions of valid and valued bodies and therefore personhood. Can old bodies be healthy? Can they retain cultural capital or is their ambiguity as both normal and pathological enough to deny old people any claim to a satisfactory sense of identity? Most of all we must ask whether the anti-ageing enterprise is the best way to combat ageism, to overcome the social and cultural exclusion of the old and to address the erosion of Welfare support (and its legitimation as the correct response to population ageing)

These questions are all the more urgent because in the last quarter of the twentieth century there have been activists and academics willing to challenge the ‘natural’ association of old age with illness and decline. A social movement developed in the 1980s and associated with Cambridge academic, Peter Laslett, the Third Age has sought to confront such assumptions. This social movement has attempted to create a positive image for old age as a period of personal development. While this movement has to some extent been successful in establishing the idea of a new positive stage in life, it has failed to overthrow the dominant image of old age as one of illness and decline. The concept of the Third Age can be seen in some circumstances as an attempt to prolong youth, not necessarily to create a new attitude to old age as a life stage valuable in its own right. But it is clear that despite the success of parts of the re-evaluation/emancipation agenda, the dominant contemporary cultural attitude to later life is that of ‘anti-’; predominantly western culture seeks not to celebrate ageing but to avoid it.” (p. 292-293).

(above is from Vincent, Tulle, and Bond, 2008, The anti-ageing enterprise: Science, knowledge, expertise, rhetoric and values, Journal of Aging Studies, 22, 291-294).

            Very well then – let the revolution begin and I hope that the enterprise that is carried out with the full realization of the symbolic, the language, and the social constructions that are used to convey the proximate and ultimate significance of the endeavors in this domain. I hope that the revolution is by both sides of the debate and that the revolution is actually the synthesis of the two – at some point.  I hope the revolution is more about quality of life and less HOW LONG we can live.

But until then, it is the aging baby boomers who will have to carefully monitor this new revolution – the longevity revolution – that is underway. For some who would seek the quick buck, ultimate hedge fund, and a group that can be suckered into buying “a stairway to heaven” – the boomers would be that group. The cohort is like a largemouth bass waiting for a shiny silver spoon to pass by (with hooks of course – and what is the hook?) – and that lure is all the promise of growing younger, living longer, and all it will take is your contribution $$$$$$$

              …remember The Beatles? Revolution ? ~

You say you want a revolution, Well you know
We’d all want to change the world
You tell me that it’s evolution…Well you know…

Okay, you get my point … Keep that red pill handy….  

     thanks, Scott D. Wright

A “gold mine” of interdisciplinary knowledge: Handbook of Research on Adult Learning and Development

Handbook of Research on Adult Learning and Development – Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group) New York.

Edited by M Cecil Smith, Assistant Editor, with Nancy DeFrates-Densch

The Rogue Scholarship on Aging Review:

This is a book that needs to be on your book shelf (or “borrowed” long-term from somebody else’s) for frequent use and reference in your research, teaching, and for your scientific knowledge of adulthood.

 **** (four stars out of five)

     I have to admit that a lot of “handbooks” (primarily for the academy) that get published tend to be long on the page numbers (usually a massive and hearty door-stopper) and heavy on the price (the price is often way out of reach for the typical salaried professor – and grad student – just hope the library might carry it) – and have the feel of “looking back” (sort of – “let’s see where we been”) so much so that the handbook ends up with the effect of being “out of date.” So if your desire and hope is for something not only current, but forward-thinking (what’s ahead ? – what are the trends? – what’s on the horizon ?), most “handbooks” fail to deliver. But it is no surprise. In the publishing world, perhaps it is safer to stay in the shallow end where it is safe and sure based on creating an “inventory” of what was – sort of a “”the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk”” – and so “at the end of the day” most handbooks take in the historical accounting of the progress in a field and then draw the line and stop short of having the publication sustain itself for the next 5 years or so. Handbooks are typically missing the dialectical structure – in the sense that – you can almost hear the publisher say: “That is what the next handbook publication is for,” but that does not address the missing element of the feel of the handbook being dynamic, fresh, and elevating in setting the foundation for – what happens next?

     The Handbook of Research on Adult Learning and Development is refreshingly different and the overall feel is having stumbled upon a “gold mind” [sic] of information and knowledge that is effectively organized by the Editor (and Assistant Editor) such that each chapter is a gold nugget in and of itself. The “talent” – that is, the contributing authors for each of the chapters represent the top scholars in the field who “walk the walk” in scientific publications and presentations. The reader is getting the best of the best in this publication. It is an incredible book – simply monumental in scope and depth for the myriad of issues that intersect with adult learning and development. I would recommend this as the consummate and authoritative “text” in any graduate course(s) on adult development and learning, aging, and topical courses in gerontology (and I mean adulthood as defined in the most broadest sense); it is quite simply a welcome addition to the literature in this domain. I congratulate M Cecil Smith as the Editor and Routledge for facilitating the collection and the production of this publication.

The “handbook” has once again regained relevancy, timeliness, and gravity. And in this case, the gravity is due to the intellectual “critical mass” –  this publication is rare and exceptional, but hopefully a harbinger for the future – a template for others to follow and replicate.

Readers are encouraged to see more information at the web site for Routledge   in regards to the details of this publication, but I have duplicated the Table of Contents below:

Part 1: Theoretical Perspectives on Adult Development and Learning. F. Blanchard-Fields, A. S. Kalinauskas Challenges for the Current Status of Adult Developmental Theories: A New Century of Progress. J. L. Tanner, J. Jensen Arnett, J. A. Leis Emerging Adulthood: Learning and Development During the First Stage of Adulthood. C. Hoare Models of Adult Development in Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Theory and Erikson’s Biopsychosocial Life Stage Theory: Moving to a More Complete Three-Model View. J. D. Sinnott Cognitive Development as the Dance of Adaptive Transformation: Neo-Piagetian Perspectives on Adult Cognitive Development.

Part 2: Research Methods in Adult Development. J. K. Holt Analyzing Change in Adulthood with Multilevel Growth Models: Selected Measurement, Design, and Analysis Issues. J. C. Valentine, H. Cooper Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis.

Part 3: Research on Adult Development. M. B. Magolda, E. Abes, V. Torres Epistemological, Intrapersonal, and Interpersonal Development in the College Years and Young Adulthood. C. R. Bolkan, P. Meierdiercks, K. Hooker Addressing Stability and Change in the Six-Foci Model of Personality: Personality Development in Midlife and Beyond. U. M. Staudinger, E. Kessler Adjustment and Growth: Two Trajectories of Positive Personality Development Across Adulthood. G. Creasey, P. Jarvis Attachment and Marriage. N. F. Marks, E. A. Greenfield The Influence of Family Relationships on Adult Psychological Well-Being and Generativity. L. M. Diamond, M. Butterworth The Close Relationships of Sexual Minorities: Partners, Friends, and Family. P. Moen, E. Kelly, R. Magennis Gender Strategies: Socialization, Allocation, and Strategic Selection Processes Shaping the Gendered Adult Life Course. E. J. Porfeli, F. W. Vondracek Career Development, Work, and Occupational Success. P. Wink Religious and Spiritual Development in Adulthood.

Part 4: Research on Adult Learning. D. Thompson A Brief History of Research and Theory on Adult Learning and Cognition. P. A. Alexander, P. K. Murphy, J. M. Kulikowich Expertise and the Adult Learner: A Historical, Psychological, and Methodological Exploration. C. A. Berg, M. Skinner, K. Ko An Integrative Model of Everyday Problem Solving Across the Adult Life Span. K. M. Sheldon Changes in Goal Striving Across the Life Span: Do People Learn to Select More Self-Concordant Goals as They Age? V. J. Marsick, K. E. Watkins, M. W. Callahan, M. Volpe Informal and Incidental Learning in the Workplace. M. C. Smith Literacy in Adulthood. S. R. Jones, A. Gasiorski Service Learning, Civic and Community Participation: Contributions to Adult Development. L. L. Weyandt Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Adults.

Part 5: Aging and Gerontological Research. B. T. Mast, J. Zimmerman, S. V. Rowe What Do We Know About the Aging Brain?: Implications for Learning in Late Life. M. Ardelt, S. Jacobs Wisdom, Integrity, and Life Satisfaction in Very Old Age. Part 6: Policy Perspectives on Aging. J. Treas, T. Hill Social Trends and Public Policy in an Aging Society.

thanks, Scott D. Wright