Reading Gene Cohen's The Mature Mind (2005) for the first time. His The Creative Age (2000) was one of the first books to make me appreciate that Mom & her circle of of compadres & cohorts embodied the creative living Gene described as natural in the older adult.
So much of what I'm reading seems - "Well, THAT's hardly news." Books & articles ballyhoo the impact of exercise, curiosity, new challenges & upbeat attitudes on promoting healthy aging. But they weren't the common wisdom in 2005.
Gene's findings took a lot of people by surprise. Freud & his fellows painted a bleak picture of our mental abilities after youth - decline, deterioration, decay were physiologically inevitable. Even Erikson, in his stages of personality development, gave little value to older age.
It was Gene, in the opening days of this current century, who threw light on the richness of age, on the importance of the older mind in understanding things in a more grounded perspective, helped restore the luster of the elderly mind, so often dismissed in a Technological Age that emphasizes the cutting edge over the well established.
Tech requires that we embrace the latest version of whatever new whiz bang gizmo comes out, abandon what we knew for what needs to be totally relearned, diminished the value of the long term & elevated the swiftly obsolete.
In reading The Mature Mind - am about 2/3 through - it strikes that our national culture seems to reflect that misplaced emphasis on the newest version & our dislike distrust distain of the aged, the elderly. We are a country run by people of increasingly young & inexperienced men & women. Barack Obama was a freshmen senator when he made his successful run for the presidential roses. Ted Cruz is trusted by millions over Hillary Clinton for his youth & inexperience as much as for his politics.
Whereas age & experience were once respected qualities in a politician & leader, growing numbers of people now seem to find them suspect, something to be avoided & shunned at all costs.
Cruz (44) and Walker (47) are both young enough to be Hilary's kids, and Bernie Sanders (73) seems like an old geezer great-uncle in comparison to them. And that is what makes them trustworthy to their devoted supporters. They haven't been corrupted by politics, they still thunder with passion & unsullied belief. The more I read Gene's book, the more I realize Ted & Scott speak from brains still under the sway of the amygdala & minds untempered by years of wisdom-producing experiencing.
One of Martin O'Malley's selling points in his run for the Democratic presidential nomination is his age - he's the newest version of a Progressive, whereas Hillary is portrayed as hopelessly out of date. He's making both the fifteen years between them & her breadth of experience a wedge for showing himself as the more trustworthy, right-for-these-times choice. Think Progressive 2.0.
There is hope that we might be willing to appreciate the value of experience & age over passionate youth. Bernie Sanders seems strangely ageless. He's a well into his seventies, yet speaks with the fire of a freshly minted politician. He's more than willing - he's eager - to go toe to toe with those he considers hooligans for supporting Wall Street & the powerful over the electorates who voted them into office. He has a shock of unwieldy white hair & continues to awe crowds with his message of a country too tightly in the clenches of Big Business, not enough standing up for the little guy.
It's going to be an interesting presidential election. Will the GOP candidate be a relative old geezer, like Jeb Bush (62) or Rick Perry (65) ~or~ a still-fresh faced possibility, like Ted or Scott? Will age - Sanders or Clinton - overcome O' Malley's youth? Will we have a president with a fully developed brain & well-seasoned mind, or - like now (Obama - 53) - one still under the sway of a pushy amygdala.
Politics & ageism - Walker, Cruz & O' Malley make the argument that the newest version is the one that will bring the best value. Age & outmoded are synonymous in their eyes. For me, the more I read The Mature Mind, the more inclined I am to look to age & experience - developed brain & seasoned thinking - over youth & energy.
Hey, what would you expect, at 63!
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