What Happens From Here? Series Continued.....

[Hoffi Gwlithlys]

From my Last entry.... Where Do We Go From Here....I stated that we will touch on the many aspects of an aging population.....

Today we touch on the general instances that many elders are facing as well as the young awaiting in the wings.

     In her 80's a woman still dances to her grandson's Led Zeppelin Tribute Concerts, swims Lake Michigan despite the brisk waters, hikes with Penguins in far away  Patagonia and cross country skis when the snows get deep enough.  Her husband in contrast, was at the peak of his creative successes and profession in his early 60's and a cruel 15 year decline left him blind, immobile, slow of speech and quite dependent, yet never lost his wit or kindness nor his ability to hold on to the joys of life, heroic to many.This couples different experiences neatly illustrates what is happening to so many Americans and the vast portions of the globes population.  the world is going gray and not just old....but old.

Some time after 60, it seems to happen to everyone; life-altering changes cascade one after another.  In some combination, the family nest is emptied; jobs end of change; spouses, friends and kin grow ill or die; bodies and minds decline; status and power in the family and in social circles inverts; money drawn down; and, as remaining years grow fewer, relationships with time and eternity shift.

Yet, new worlds can open up too.  Time can expand, social circles grow bigger and new passions take root.  Free from relentless demands of family and work, older people may experience a sweet rejuvenation 

,  People whom one might expect to be decrepit and infirm are, well, dancing at the Led Zeppelin Tribute concerts or even performing in them.

     Mean while, though the world well understands how young people shape social life and business, it is just now beginning to see how the arrival of a historically enormous older population will affect us all.  Many old people like the couple described earlier, will be healthy and vibrant, but others will need extraordinary resources to make it from one day to the next.  The aging of the globe is having profound economic, political, cultural and familial effects that are only going to intensify.  Some of these changes will be welcome and others will not.

     Certain people will benefit and others will be harmed.  Money and power are at stake, of course, as well as the well being of millions of older people who have worked and loved and given themselves to all that life offers.  But the well being of the globes youth is also at stake, because it is they who need resources also required by the old, and because in the end, it is largely the young who as family members, friends, and citizens traveling the continuum of an aging world, will eventually care for the old and in time their older selves.  The signs of the shift, large and small are every where, if we only see them.

The Next portion of the series will examine the signs of the shift.  So Please continue this journey with me and feel free to comment at any point along the way. 

Again, Thank You...

Hugs,

Hoffi

[M]

Hoffi,

The one thing I wonder about, especially with the boomer generation starting to transition into Social Security is; The Government has repeatedly said Social Security is ready to collapse.

Does anyone remember that Social Security is our money taken forcibly from our paychecks?

Does anyone remember that at the end of the Eisenhower Administration, the heavily Democratic Congress went against their own rules about strictly earmarking the funds only for Social Security payments and against commingling Social Security Funds with the General Fund and then unilaterally decided to take all the incoming revenue and replace it with Government IOU's.

Then again during the LBJ administration The Democrats decided to take all the funds out of SS and replace them with Government IOU's to fund the continuing boondoggle that Lyndon called "The Great Society" and that we are still paying excessively for today even though it has crashed and burned years ago?

Now, with 3-5 times the people in the workforce the Government says it will need to FIX SS with higher taxes since they can not find the funds to restore it to what it was before they started raiding it and basically STEALING our money!

Before the Democrats started stealing what was not theirs the SS fund was supposedly good to last for a hundred years even considering the average yearly inflation.  So, after a rather lengthy diatribe, I think we should go to the polls from here and remove every single Democrat from power that we can.

M