Redefining "senior moments:" Aha!

According to Suzanne Stinnett, culture change student and author of Little Shifts, the healthy aging brain is a lot like new social media: "Adaptive, highly integrated, self-renewing, making use of accumulation of data."

Unfortunately, we tend to look at the older software of the mind the same way we look at older technology. "We view a tech tool that has been around for ten years as a dinosaur – and if it is still useful, smart, and engaging, we’re in awe."

Stinnett makes an argument for more awe, less ugh, and defines a senior moment as:

The moment of “aha” when yet another innovation comes together as a result of our activated brains. When a senior citizen provides an integration of concepts, a brilliant innovation, or makes some connection that no one else could think of. The product of an experienced brain which is functioning at a high level. Only people who have been around the sun fifty times or so are capable of these moments.

Aha!

So long

This is the last entry for this blog as a vehicle of the Milwaukee Aging Consortium. We've had a great time exploring issues on aging in Milwaukee and in general here. We'd hoped that readers would become engaged in creating a discussion, but that didn't happen. So it's time to find a different way to get--and keep--the conversations going.

To those of you who read Aging Maven regularly, thanks so much. And keep the Maven bookmarked: she'll be resurrected as an independent blog.

Deep thanks to the Milwaukee Aging Consortium for trying this experiment. As always, the Consortium continues to find better ways to connect professionals so that together, we can make a real difference in aging.

Aging, changing American demographics: even on the political radar?

Forget McCain's age for a moment. An aging America is nowhere to be seen in either presidential candidate's radar, says Newsweek and syndicated columnist Robert Samuelson (July 6, 2008).

John McCain and Barack Obama are against poverty and fiscal irresponsibility. . . (They) favor “reform.” But beyond these platitudes, they’re mostly mute.

That global aging is “a demographic shift with no parallel in human history” is not exactly a secret or even a disputed issue. So its absence from the discussion table seems curious. Then again, according to Samuelson,

It is one of our fondest political myths that elections allow us collectively to settle the "big issues." The truth is that there's often a bipartisan consensus to avoid the big issues, because they involve unpopular choices and conflicts. Elections become exercises in mass evasion; that certainly applies so far to the 2008 campaign. A case in point is America's population transformation. Few issues matter more for the country's future — and yet, it's mostly ignored.

Samuelson has visited the issue before, specifically focusing on developing bi-partisan think tanks to come up with data and policy solutions to the problems related to government spending on older Americans and immigration issues.

But that’s not enough, according to Encore, an organization devoted to revitalizing later life careers.

. . .Samuelson’s challenge is all to the good, but the framing is too narrow, too Beltway. Rather than merely craft a policy that averts the fiasco, we need a vision that fosters a renewal, both social and individual. Aging boomers are more than liabilities, after all, they are also assets. Changing the starting point of the discussion also changes the end result. Rather than muddle through, why not break through?

Certainly, longer working lives are likely to be a feature of boomers’ encores, but that reality will be much more appealing if work itself is reimagined: encore careers at the intersection of personal meaning, continued income and social impact.

How do we in the community of professionals and “experts” on aging find ways to bring constructive solutions to a table that’s not even set? It seems having faith that whichever candidate we prefer will “do the right thing” is a bit misplaced.

What’s your organization doing locally or nationally to “not muddle through, but break through”? Share your ideas and experiences with us!