Can we predict how healthy we will be in our old age? We all have an interest in the answer to this question! Most of us, I would think, want to know what will give us a healthy old age.
A word of caution: These predictions are about statistics and averages – which [...]
Ageing is partly a process of finding out what our preferences are. I haven’t tasted a banana in years. Why not? Because I know that I don’t like bananas. Lately I have tried a few beers with fruit flavours added – lime and so forth. The result? The fruit [...]
There are three tasks or personal qualities that are especially relevant to old age. These are well explained in George Vaillant’s Ageing Well. They are: generativity, keeping the meaning and integrity.
Generativity
Generativity as defined by (Ageing Well p.115) John Kotre: To invest oneself in forms of life and work that will outlive the self. [...]
It is interesting to study how some people age well (and George Vaillant’s book Ageing Well is a great study of them).
The question this raises is: So what? That radio station we like to tune into: WIIFM (What’s in it for me?). Can I do anything that makes it more likely I will [...]
Continue reading about Ageing Well – can we do anything about it?
I’m Ageing
Some of us are getting on a bit. OK, I’m getting on a bit. I turned 50 this year. This makes me (at least) middle aged. A few of my contemporaries have already died. I don’t feel panicked, but perhaps a little sobered. My parents (both 84) are [...]
These three blogs are all about changing our world for the better.
First up, because it has the biggest agenda, is On The Commons. This blog covers the whole of our social lives from the perspective of what we share – rather than private ownership. It is biased to the US in its coverage. [...]
Continue reading about Great Blogs about Social Change (making utopia real #3)
I recently did a post on making utopia real. In the comments Chris Edgar and I had a discussion on the place of politics in creating utopia.
Chris and I pretty much agreed that politics alone wouldn’t bring in utopia. I still think this – personal trauma and our relationships aren’t much affected by [...]
Continue reading about Governments, Laws and Our Happiness (Making Utopia Real #2)
There is a brand of literature called the “utopian”. It is where people imagine an ideal place and describe what it is like to live there. This is used to comment on the currently poor way that people live.
This type of literatures takes its name from the first modern example – Thomas More’s [...]
