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.