There is something fundamentally flawed about our current image of growing old. Our current culture tells us that there is nothing to be gained in that phase of life that follows adulthood. What I am discovering is a powerful truth about why we age and what tremendous potential for discovery, development, and the cultivation of wisdom exists beyond the shores of our adult years. More importantly, I am learning about how our current culture and the problems of our world are desperately in need of a society of elders and their augmented experience and wisdom. The documentary is the beginning of what I hope will become an initiative to tell the story of the value and meaning that exists in our aging and how we, as an aging population, can become a valuable gift to our communities and create a new vision of what it means to grow old on purpose. Click on the link below to visit the project website and learn more.
The Aging Film Project
more to come...
Peace,
David
Hi - Mary Sweeney's friend Rosemary Connors here. Since reading your post about an hour ago, I have seen a friend's bittersweet Facebook post about getting his AARP card; turned on the TV to see some infomercial about pills to help with memory loss with the "expert" saying "if you are not as sharp as you used to be" (who is?); and changed the channel to find a Boris Karloff movie about an elderly doctor convicted of mercy killing who is trying to find a way to keep cells alive forever before he himself is executed.
ReplyDeleteOkey dokey! I would say something is in the air. I will continue to follow your progress on this film with great interest. And for now, I am settling in with Karloff...
Rosie! You've just described the very reason I'm in such big support of David's project...or shall I say "movement"? In the midst of yet another animated conversation together a key point emerged...one that really should take to the dry grass like a spark from lightning. Namely, that the boomers, who were the very generation most invested in seeking evolved consciousness, evolved forms of community, are perhaps the best equipped to really take on this question of aging with purpose! Who better to, once again, turn the tide of history collectively then the frisky adolescents who once refused to go gently into any good night!
ReplyDeleteLooking forward, David, to reading more of your musings here!!