Article from EscapeArtists.co.uk

I'm sure this goes against the over-romantic grain of a worry-free future at sixty plus but retirement, too often, can be a bore. No more regular letters, telephone or e-mails to remind oneself of a lost sense of belonging. Daily travel routines, paid holidays and occupational links quickly disappear, no new ideas to explore and the gang one has known for years soon forgets you even exist. Even worse, as the ageing process continues, partners die or leave, your neighbourhood becomes a lonely place and, as a singleton, pubs become more attractive than they should with holidays alone losing their appeal.

You can, of course, if you survive this first blitz, join voluntary organisations, read the Guardian obsessively, think about part-time work and seek an outside world for oneself. The problems here with groups such as charities, not-for-profit businesses and the like is that new generations have now, inevitably and quite properly, taken over. Many of them, as one describes years at the grass-roots with lessening confidence seem, irritatingly, unable to comprehend that this reform and that innovation had been thought about many years before. No-one ever rings back, what you thought was a unique range of networks fails to reply even to unpaid offers of help and 'who did you say was calling' commonplace? Even Universities of the Third Age, brilliant though they are, can be somewhat didactic, arguably over-passive and fail to re-engage with the real world of breaking new, integrated ground.

So often aimless leisure, especially if you are alone, means that when you wake up in the morning you find yourself still listening to Radio Four at ten, shouting at John Humphries, Melvyn Bragg and even Andrew Marr who all, annoyingly, show no signs of listening. Followed by the big trip to town for the paper and/or the library, cinema or shopping at the Coop where you rarely see anyone you knew before.

Even with excellent radio four programmes, backed up by the superb BBC World programme where they really try to involve themselves with common people, the media generally fails to connect with listeners seeking to improve the quality of their sometimes lonely days. Unaware perhaps of the need to learn new, grass-roots oriented skills about our new worlds. 'Only connect' wrote Forster but, in reality it's often a tough world out there. So who was it coined that remark, which I even heard on the radio today, retirement means consigning people to the scrapheap?

You could even try starting a social enterprise, community business or the like but, again, it's incredibly hard to make progress as membership of the Old Farts Club takes root.

I have two recent memories of starting initiatives from scratch, intensive funding challenges and over-competition from newcomers certain they can reform the world alone and who seem to have learned nothing from past generations. Gradually a sense of despair takes over as you look for some niche based on past experience, knowledge and a sense of cooperation. It's alright whilst you are still active, walking, talking and biking but, too quickly, despondency sets in.

Perhaps what we should all be doing is thinking more pro-actively about ways in which our life-skills could connect with other people’s action, research, ideas and future planning, aggressively keeping our intellects, and bodies, alive and well.

Which could also be an effective way of combating inevitable health problems as the ageing process accelerates. How many of you out there have had a PSA tests recently as strokes, heart attacks and dementias threaten? If we could achieve this more radically, and I cannot see any evidence of any debate that turns the problems, and benefits, of ageing on its head, perhaps we could all rejoin, in a small way, the world outside. After all over-glamourised travel supplements, even if you can afford them, quickly tire. As does too much reading, television and not enough conversation with outsiders. These thoughts may seem rather pessimistic but there's no good reason why we shouldn't stride more confidently, if our knees and hips allow it, down this often uncharted and badly signposted route.

Possible routes.

I’ll look forward to hearing from you and there seems to me plenty of themes, see below, for us to work together...

• Charities and people who are ageing.
• Commerce and people who are ageing.
• Cooperation of all works working with people who are ageing.
• Durham Council Council and people who are ageing.
• Education, of all sorts, working with people who are ageing.
• Employment of all sorts for people who are ageing.
• Health issues and people who are ageing
• Integrated services working with people who are ageing.
• Membership fees for people who are ageing.
• Labelling theory and people who are ageing.
• Michael Young and people who are ageing.
• Radical people working with people who are ageing.
• Radical videos working with people who are ageing
• Radical international experiences working with people who are ageing.
• Radical literature relating to people who are ageing.
• Smart and smarter people who are ageing.
• Self-help and people who are ageing.
• Social and community enterprise working with people who are ageing.
• U3As, worldwide working with people who are ageing.
• International radical experiences working with people who are ageing.
  
  

Early ideas.

The idea behind this blog is to help those of us who are, hopefully, thinking creatively about radical life options during retirement. I havn’t yet found an innovative not-for-profit web-site which really appeals to me and meets some of my needs as a seventy-plus person. But it would be helpful also if we could think ‘with, as opposed to for, people who are ageing’ - which seems to me a more inclusive term borrowed from my Open University years – as well as ways in which we could work cooperatively together. So cooperation, radical thinking and, hopefully, influencing change through innovation are the names of the game and we are planning to run the site as co-operative. On the membership basis of one person one vote.... We'll look forward to hearing from you with your ideas, suggestions and contributions.


And as for the ‘dying part’ well, why not, think more positively about when and how we all reach the knacker’s yard and I’m, personally, a great admirer of Michael Young and his ideas about innovative ways of life - and death…So some my interests, and needs as I slowly recover from the death of my wife three years ago, include;

1. borrowing ideas from the Saturday Guardian Money page which is becoming more participative and inviting readers to comment on how they individually problem-solve. Then, who knows, concepts of collectivity and co-operation might mysteriously re-emerge. Or even a more complementary political system? I also think that FaceBook and Youtube offer us all a more creative way of sharing our ideas. After all why should the devil, and the young, have the best ideas…
   
   


2. challenging PC thinking and arguing that ‘labelling theory’ - ways in which we all might all more helpfully refer to each other - needs to be re-thought-through. The idea of the ‘kit-cat- club on Radio Four recently thinking about politeness, respect and courtesy rang a bell and, for me, dismissive terms such as ‘patient, gerontology and pensioner’ are words which, often unconsciously, demean us all and put us all down? And it was good to read Ziauddin Sardar in the Guardian arguing that “sensitive language remains crucial.”
   
   


3. the idea of sharing ideas, concepts and strategies about everything from creative self-employment, and employment, as we all variously age, to ways in which those of us lucky enough to have moderate means can join together to think about more radical not-for-profit initiatives. Bringing back, for example, the many progressive and co-operative ideas which surround us, education really for life, mutual help for people who are ageing and ways of co-operating as our joints and our minds, inevitably, begin to fail.
   

We could even, and here’s the excitement, establish ourselves as people who in our own right want to continue to make a collective contribution to a better society. In thinking about a fairer range of incomes, sharper more cooperative welfare systems, non-paternalistic charities and ‘only connecting’ with the more progressive social and community enterprises we could re-define what we mean by radical thinking in a more productive and mutual fashion.

Welcome to smart ageing

This is a hopeful introduction to 'smartageing' which, hopefully will take a more critical look at more radical thinking which could explore the debate around 'people who are ageing.' My early thinking below is that, gradually we will introduce photographs, extend the dialogue and develop our own ideas within a co-operative style of working. Which will gradually shape within a shared perspective, the experience of ageing more positively....