f e at u r es | by Jordan Foltz The CCAN holds public meetings the third Wednesday of every month to address the “Living Environments” criterion of Buncombe County’s Aging Plan, part of an effort to make sure all the county’s seniors have the support they need for healthy lives. “We have people walking into their 60s, 70s, and 80s without the savings that their parents had,” Fields explains. “And they’re going to have to figure out how to do it without the government and without their pensions.”
Finding elderhood Aging in community is about more than just a network of support to meet elders’ basic needs — it’s also about a network where elders themselves are needed. Seniors today don’t just face a difficult system when it comes to housing or care; but they also face the existential dilemma of finding purpose, usefulness, an intergenerational connection and meaningfulness in today’s world. We generally take it as true that age brings wisdom, but with a generation of elders hanging onto their youth, we lose the value and importance of those with the greatest messages to share. “What is very foreign to American culture is the importance of elderhood as a distinct, developmental stage,” Fields says. “Instead, there’s this concept of never-ending adulthood.” Sethi-Brown adds, “We pride the 80-year-olds who can run a marathon. We put billboards up about it … and so other people who can’t run marathons at 80 are not considered as successful.” If current cultural norms push elders to achieve value through youthfulness, not only are they lost in a search for identity and purpose, but we lose them as a source for inherent and unique abilities like wisdom — because with today's dependence on technology, society no longer relies on wisdom to survive. What was once sage advice may now be seen as irrelevant, outdated, overshadowed by innovation — causing fewer seniors to cultivate wisdom altogether.
“We have people walking into their 60s, 70s and 80s without the saving that their parents had, and they’re going to have to figure out how to do it without the government and without their pensions.”
From the letters, more than 100 people signed on to attend an open forum at OLLI in early March 2015. However, in the pursuit of this more traditional role, Elders Fierce for Justice, and boomers in general, may find that the role as it once existed is gone for good. Rather than reclaiming it from the past, they may need to redefine it in a way that meets modern needs. The traditional elder fits perfectly into a society whose very survival depended on the renewal of customs and ethics that kept communities in balance. To achieve that balance, however, modern American culture is pressed to branch away from conventional ways of being and thinking, repeatedly eliminating the usefulness of “how it used to be.” As the elder role is redefined, it’s necessary to involve the many generations in discourse and decision-making, as one generation’s youth will become another generation’s elders. “I think surviving in and of itself is a kind of wisdom,” says OLLI’s director, Catherine Frank. “You can say, ‘Here’s what we did.’ But as an older adult, I think you have to be open to the idea that there are other ways, and listening to younger people [and recognizing], ‘That’s not exactly the struggle we fought, but it’s part of the struggle. And here’s what we learned, and here’s what I can bring to the work that needs to be done.’ Even if that isn’t just wisdom — that kind of exchange is really important.” If we’re looking for a way to engage with elders, the opportunity isn’t difficult to find, notes Wendy Marsh of Buncombe Council on Aging. In fact, aging services are always in need of volunteers. “There isn’t as much interest in helping older adults as there is in helping other groups of people,” Marsh says. “I think people have a hard time seeing their own futures.”
NEW HOMES
RENOVATIONS
Legerton
ADDITIONS
A R C H I T E C T U R E
Born in 2014 from discussion groups at UNC Asheville’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, the group Elders Fierce for Justice grew out of a sense of urgency to take action and rediscover the role that lies beyond adulthood and career. “There’s an expression at OLLI that a large number of people there are PIPs: Previously Important People,” says Steve Kaagan, one of the founders of Elders Fierce for Justice. “[Without their careers], they don’t have a role anymore. All of us had decided to really change our narrative and that what we wanted to do was to reclaim the role of elder.” The group kicked off its outreach with a series of op-eds in the Asheville Citizen-Times. The first letter, written by Mahan Siler, opens: “A new idea is rising to expression in our community. Persons over 65, officially retired from a variety of professions, are coming together and rediscovering the traditional role of elder in the service of a more just, healthy and compassionate community.”
J. Weiland
— Linda Kendall Fields, Culture Change in Aging Network of Buncombe County
21 North Liberty Street 828.251.9125
Asheville, NC 28801
www.legertonarchitecture.com 2015 | mountainx.com/guides
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