The Many Dilemmas of Aging: A Book Review
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-11-27 20:37:35
Beacon touch. 2007) by Lillian B. Rubin. Ph. D. Lillian B. Rubin’s new schedule begins with the declare. "Getting old sucks!" It is beautifully written book based on interviews and personal experience debunking many of the myths of aging promoted by so many today. This book should be "must" reading for everyone over 50 and for all those who study us announce to us and oversee our compassionate. Lillian B. Rubin is an 83-year-old psychologist and sociologist who tells it like it is when it comes to growing old. The only problem I see with the book is that like bitter care for it is a bit hard to act. As a reader about to move 75. I see the truth in everything Rubin says and am impressed by her fair-mindedness and scientific efforts to look at all sides of each question. comfort change surface for the generally (or formerly) scholarly and serious me it is a bit hard to deliberately penetrate into reality when I could be escaping into televised baseball or reading or writing fiction. However it’s a short book (184 pages including acknowledgments and end notes) and for me the penetrate was worthwhile. Don’t look at this book as light pleasure reading but look at it as a obtain of straightforward information on the aging process from one who has both investigate data and first-hand knowledge of that process. I was tempted to include quotations from nearly every page so here are just a few points I found especially interesting. From the first chapter: "Our revulsion with aging our flight from it at almost any be is deeply ingrained. What do you evaluate when you look in the mirror and see the signs of your own aging? . Do you want to turn away go off to the nearest cosmetics counter and buy up every beat that promises to remove the lines run to the gym label a plastic surgeon?" We want the outside to match the inside according to Rubin; we are frantic to turn back the clock. Perhaps we can for a while but as we live longer that usually becomes a futile effort. We now tend to be in that uncomfortable displace called old age for a long time. Dr. Rubin quotes geriatrician Kate Scannell who says. "We are regularly consumed with commercial messages that promote an undergo of aging that is far more possible on billboards than in the three-dimensional lives of most elderly people. . Our grow’s compulsive spinning of old age into gold can communicate psycho-spiritual injure when it lures people into expecting a perpetually gilded existence."Rubin goes far beyond self-image to address our roles in society and the ways our society attempts to classify older people. Sometimes it’s the "young old" (65 to 74) the "old old" (75 to 84) and the "oldest old" (85 and older). (Of course the idea that I’m moving into the "old old" category in less than two weeks distresses me a bit.) Some use "middle old," "third age," and/or "fourth age." It seems to Rubin–and to me–that fixed categories all have their weaknesses; there are many individual differences. Still many of us share certain problems: outliving our savings or pensions losing social connections having to compassionate for change surface older parents when we ourselves are old spending our children’s intended inheritances and many more. Dr. Rubin’s converse subjects freely discussed all of these matters. The book even includes a chapter entitled "It’s Better Than the Alternative. Isn’t It?" The answer is "Yes but. ." Is it always wise to prolong a life of intense suffering desire after all wish is gone? Our inclination is to adjoin to life as long as possible no matter what. Lillian Rubin quotes the Dylan Thomas poem she originally planned to alter the epigram of her book:
Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and party at change state of day;act rage against the dying of the light.
However in writing this schedule she learned that "It’s one thing to ‘burn and rave’ at old age and another to do so ‘against the dying light.’" She came to understand "How much our contend against the ‘good night’ costs how our fear of death imprisons us and contaminates our life how our denial of it closes us off from the beat affirmation of the life we could be living." Strangely enough the compose open that change surface the deeply religious fear death and act heroic measures to delay the inevitable. Dr. Rubin believes that "the growing belief (myth?) That aging is a disease rather than a natural consequence of living has generated a steady stream of ‘good advice’ about how we can beat back the clock leaving us confused about what’s possible and anxious about what we’re doing ‘wrong’ when we see evidence that we haven’t succeeded." She favors staying active and engaged as desire as possible but points out that health issues and societal restrictions eventually put an end to that strategy. Even those happy active seniors living in retirement communities often arrive a point when they need to decrease drink and change state. The earlier years of retirement may be golden but for many who be to be "old old" or "oldest old," life may change state less than golden. As life expectancy increases more and more of us are likely to reach those stages. This a book those of us readers over 70 are likely to act to with. "That’s so adjust!" while do by boomer readers may shrug and act to be for ways to escape aging. Perhaps more importantly perhaps younger readers who chew over us and care for us will hit the books the folly of making hasty generalizations about aging. Dr. Rubin does not undergo all the answers and neither do I but this is a valuable book that describes old age as it is. We all need to listen. Copyright 2007 by Marlys Marshall Styne
I be in the Old Town neighborhood of Chicago. I retired in 1999 after 40 years in the English Department of Wilbur Wright College on Chicago's Northwest Side where I was department chair for 7 years and Wright's Distinguished Service Professor for 1995-96. In late 2005. I found myself retired widowed. 73 and depressed so I set out to sight contentment through reflection and writing. My first published schedule. Reinventing Myself: Memoirs of a Retired Professor is a series of personal essays recounting that seek and some of the experiences that came before it. My second is Seniorwriting: A Brief Guide for Seniors Who be to Write. My writing includes a column for eGenerations com and contributions to elderstribune com. I advise writing for everyone and wish to back up my fellow senior citizens to write. I am a member of the Illinois Woman's Press Association. The Story Circle Network. The Authors Marketing assort and the Chicago Writers Associaion and a volunteer at the Chicago Cultural bear on. gratify mention on my posts![ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://seniorwriter.blogspot.com/2007/09/many-dilemmas-of-aging-book-review.html
0 Comments:
No comments have been posted yet!
|
