Elderly Controversy Viewed by an Elderly

Preface

Warning

This is a very different book in important ways from the usual treatment that concentrates mainly on suggestions for improving the daily life of seniors. It is not written by an expert on seniors but by a senior whose diverse experiences and problems transcend the standard content purveyed by traditional experts. Many will find this to be a very controversial treatment of the category of seniors.

Most importantly this is in large part not a feel good book but had to be written to as one might say to level the playing field. It is in stark disagreement with the bestselling, but seriously flawed book, Abundance. In fact I predict that many potential readers will not download this book after reading its first sections. This treatise consists of 3 parts, urgent problems thoughtlessly created by or heedlessly left unsolved by the elderly generation which portend serious consequences for our progeny, coping with seniors problems as viewed from my own experiences and amusing stories in my life of the bygone era to entertain and stimulate the senior reader to remember similar issues in their own life. I purposely put the problems related to our elderlies generation’s notable failures as part 1 because I felt this to be the most important section and in dire need of thoughtful consideration. The reader may wonder why I omit obvious triumphs that have occurred during our tenure. This is because despite these triumphs our world has developed during this same period into serious state of decrepitude.

Thus I plan first to outline selected critical challenges and crisis that my generation including me failed to resolve. These will include those we consciously decided not to worry about, ones which developed and were discarded from our minds as issues that would be resolved by others or because required remediation would interfere adversely with aspects of our happy existence. Herein I, a strong proponent of democracy, provide a hardnosed look at selected possible reasons why often for selfish motives the world we have developed as our legacy for our progeny is essentially dysfunctional and fraught with critical threats to the sustainability of mankind. Happily there are solutions to some of these that the elderly can still provide curative assistance.

Additionally this book is non-conventional in this field since in the second part of this treatise I use in large part my own and related experiences to discuss problems faced day to day by seniors. Recommendations are frequently drawn from my own hard won experiences. In making this choice the reader should know that I have dealt with a plethora of medical experts and experts in a wide range of other fields as a senior and have had more than my share of indifferent treatment therefrom. The reason I have had such a wide range of experience with medics is that I have a severe learning disability and am bipolar as well and yet I became a Full Professor at the University of Toronto. In the case of the latter I have published several peer reviewed research papers in the clinical field that allowed me to see medical science from the inside. I also have a pacemaker the presence of which shows serious deficiencies in medical treatment as will be detailed below. Other qualifications are listed below. The third part with amusing stories is to help the readers ease out of this treatise by reviving old memories of our their bygone lives based on incidents from my own.

Seniors Legacy to Their Progeny

I wish to emphasize that what follows in this section is a statement that applies in the average senior’s situation there are numerous praiseworthy exceptions. The elderly have all spent at least 65 years on this earth in at least 40 years of these most of us share some degree of culpability for the major problems that presently threaten the sustainability of mankind worldwide.

Some will claim they were largely unaware of the critical state of the urgent problems I will be divulging. Many will claim freedom from blame since they were not employed in any area that related to these issues. Or there are those who would assert that there were others better positioned to communicate on these serious issues hence they assumed these individuals were handling the problem. None of these reasons relieves anyone in my generation, this generation of elderly, of their portion of the blame for the major predicaments we now face. In a democracy and in a well-informed world like ours each of us has had the responsibility to become aware of the crucial predicaments and then pressure our representatives at the relevant levels of government for remediation.

To an agree understandably a large fraction of us live our lives in a very self-centered manner and have engaged in actions and pursuits mainly to benefit our own family unit Taking Climate Change as an example, few of us were climatologists or related scientists who had the expertise to study and propose changes to avert this disaster. Still fewer seniors were in the decision making chain that could have enacted legislation to effect these needed changes. Yet as must be emphasized again in a democracy all of us are empowered to exert pressure for corrective action when needed; but how many do? How many of us took up the chalice in this broadly publicized mess and bothered to keep pressure for needed change constantly flowing to the crucial climate change pressure points. What if 100% of the citizens of Canada made a plea to government for remediation of the Climate Change issue do you not think action would be forthcoming? But most of us don’t bother to communicate our concerns to authorities. This permits the government and the vested interests to divert most of the population into believing that actions like planting trees, cleaning up urban clutter and recycling represent an adequate show of Environmental responsibility. Most politicians and I say this after years of experience locally and worldwide, despite their political leanings are like buckets which are full to the brim with promises and intentions, some deeply felt and many purely intended to garner votes. Once elected these political buckets begin to empty, and are left with a few deeply held beliefs and intentions.

Most importantly why specifically do I dare think I have the credentials and required erudition for such an evaluation and condemnation of my generation? I am a Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto who was cross appointed and engaged in teaching and research in 2 departments and 1 Institute, Earth Sciences, Chemistry and Environmental Studies. My research At the Institute for Environmental Studies consisted of interdisciplinary subjects that involved direct daily cooperative work with physicists, life scientists, biological scientists, economists, lawyers, political, social scientists and others. In addition I worked as consultants in Canada and worldwide for groups such as UNESCO, The World Bank, CSIRO (guest worker) and PACE. In these consultancies I lived and worked for short periods in a variety of jurisdictions on 6 Continents covering the gamut of political systems. Thus unlike most seniors I have a uniquely diverse yet powerful perspective on the world as it now exists, why this is so and can then make an informed assessment on the prospects for its future. This latter is of particular importance since it has ramifications for the prospects of our progeny Of course it might be logical to argue that for this very same reason I might be more culpable in the non-solution of the critical world threatening problems than most since I had all these credentials to provide the answers and the impetus. I can only state that I spent my whole career in attempting to have important remediation put in place both in North America and in many other worldwide jurisdictions. For the most part I failed. I might cite the dysfunctional nature of local governance, gridlock among the superpowers relating to the nature of viable solutions, detail dirty tricks employed by those opposed to my attempts at needed change and a dozen other excuses but I accept my fate and admit that perhaps a better individual than I would have been much more successful. You will have your opinion after reading this account.

Notice

Data abounds about the elderly thus instead of providing direct quotes from a particular source the numerical and specific statements given in this treatise in most cases represent averages or generalities divined by the author from many sources. Some (W) has been provided from the website www.worldometers.info. The names of persons used in the manuscript are purely fictional except of course for my own, where quotations are cited or famous historical individuals are identified.

The Basics of our Feelings

The phrase you are only as old as you think you are is widely used. No doubt about it a person’s mental and emotional mind set can make a huge difference not only in everyday attitude towards life but in physical health and wellbeing as well.. Most of us have seen people recover from seemingly fatal illness based more on their belief that the problem can and will be beaten rather than through any medication prescribed.

Just for fun let’s divulge a widely used definition of elderly? The World Health Organization states Most developed world countries have accepted the age of 65 years as a definition of elderly or older person. Using this definition and averaging estimates from a variety of sources about 15% of the US population is 65 years of age or older 1n 2012.

At the age of 76 by this definition I have had 11 years of elderliness. When I was 65 there was no way you could define me as elderly, I was for example still writing books, constructing computers from scrap parts, jogging 10 km per day, digging new gardens in hard packed clay and taking public transit to all my appointments. Now at 76 I again for example I am writing books, walking 5km per day and planting in my garden. Others at this same age of 76 can still do what I did at age 65. Thus defining a numerical age value for elderly is obviously a fool’s game. Anyone over the age of 65 who reads this book has their own stories of personal incidents that relate to the process of aging. These experiences relate to medical issues, technology challenges, treatment by business people and/or those in the commercial world and in the service industry together with a variety of other experiences. Often in my case these experiences have been negatively (inferiorly) tainted because of my age a situation I find is common for many others in my category.

Let’s share our experiences by you comparing yours to mine. Then let me make some suggestions on how best to handle aging in the atmosphere of runaway technology and related areas of rapid development. Perhaps I can define in this kaleidoscope of change just what are the most essential issues the "elderly’ need face, my main purpose being to bring some order from this massive muddle of change.

The elderly should have fundamental prerogatives. A person should have the right to live in their own domicile or at least reside as an independent individual as long as possible and this is particularly important for most elderly many who often feel challenged in this regard by family. One of my pet peeves is fighting to have my needs be considered as important as those in younger age groups. In a related matter there are times that I struggle even to be taken seriously or even considered capable particularly by professionals in the medical and business worlds. Most of this can be summed up by the need to be treated with the respect similar to that would be accorded any person at any age.

Much also depends on the view we have of ourselves that determines how we react to situations that occur as we age. The reactions and subsequent actions over the years end up formulating our true view of our self.

Self-Worth

I’m me and what the Hell can I do about it? Langley, towards the denouement of his seemingly irrational Fifth Ave New York existence, utters this frustratingly terse self appraisal in E. L. Doctorow’s epic study of 2 eccentric brothers in Homer and Langley. This succinct and cryptic message jolted me to the realization that as we zig zag along the corridors from birth to maturity this just about sums up our ultimate fate. The only question to be resolved really is how