The Spittle Chunks of the Aged.

[bratenfrau]

We have this courier at the papers whose sole job it is to drive between our three offices once a day and deliver all the assorted miscellany that goes along with running a spread-out company: ad specs, proofs, invoices and the like, most of which could be faxed but hey, somebody's elderly father-in-law needed the job. The spry senior in question

Comments

Elders and such

[usaresistance]

It is sad that in our culture, the elderly offer little to the young besides cynicism, corporatized consumerism, and traditional family values, as they are our ancestors, and in other cultures are treated with respect and love, even looked up to for advice and teaching. In a highly evolved society (i read this in a book, Conversations With God[dess]), the elders would raise the children made by the young folks... that is my kinda world! The elders are supposed to be the storehouses of our ancestry, yet our society is so compartmentalized and separated from Mother Earth, they are kinda offensive. I think i was born in the wrong culture or something... and i am not talking about you... this is a common feeling in our culture to discard our elderly or hide them away, whether it is due to the inevitability that we all get old and saggy, or that they just smell funny, or that they are not at all feminists for the most part and call you honey and such, or that they drive too slow and erratically, who the fuck knows.. but America's elderly are quite annoying and useless in the majority of cases.

personally, i hope i do live that long... yet i know a bit about energetic medicine, so know my quality of life will be great. i put my grandmother on some supplements to help her with memory issues a few years ago and her memory improved tremendously. It is too bad western medicine doesn't emphasize these things, as our elderly might as a class be quite different if they had all their wits about them...

Re: Elders and such

[bratenfrau]

I agree that in an ideal world, there would be an actual function for old people besides just as a dedicated viewership for Fox's "From the Heartland," or helping to buy up all the Lincoln Continentals so we don't have to. But on the other hand, medical science is allowing people to vastly outlive their usefulness in this culture, so it's already pretty unnatural that we have ninety year old people still hanging on by a thread and draining their childrens' inheritance funds at their overpriced elder-care facilities. People like Cap really, honestly, shouldn't be alive in the first place. That sounds harsh, but I mean that it is simply unnatural to actually outlive your own societal niche. But then, I guess that's what Florida is for: creating a Storehouse for the Elderly where we can tuck them and their unsightly oozing wounds that never heal away for good. :)

Re: Elders and such

[usaresistance]

In China, it is expected that people live to be one hundred, so i wouldn't just blame it on modern medical science, though you sure could blame a lot of things on western allopathic medicine, for sure! They actually seem to kill them off sooner in many cases of putting them on all sorts of synthetic medicines that poison their poor little livers and shit....

i believe the main reason people tend to live longer is sanitation... or so i have read. i think the vast increases in property values, and thus land taxes, will drive a lot of them elsewhere... one can only hope!

Re: Elders and such

[bratenfrau]

Yes, but in a place like China, where the average person has far less access to health care, people who are living to be 100 are a lot more likely to actually be NOT just a semi-vegetative spittle-chunk-blowing mess at that age. If you make it to 100 in a place like Okinawa, for example, which I believe has the longest life expectancy in the world, it's because you're still relatively fit and with it at 100. Not because you've been toting around an oxygen tank on the back of your Rascal for the last 34 years. That's all I'm sayin'.

You're right about sanitation though, that probably has more to do with it than our (relatively shoddy) healthcare system.

Re: Elders and such

[usaresistance]

What gives you the impression that China has inferior health care? They have one of the most integrated medical systems in the world, where herbs, acupuncture, and western medical techniques are used together, actually. Remember, socialized, universal health care? Free visits to acupuncturist and herbalist... and also, their culture knows way more about diet and balancing foods... and yes, the chinese that live in cities have a relatively similar life expectancy... probably has more to do with polution and such than anything, as far as why our elderly are dumbed down and less useful.

Okinawa is Japan, right? They are capitalist... good little colony of the United States, mostly.

Re: Elders and such

[bratenfrau]

Yes, Okinawa is Japan, obviously... just making a point. :)

And granted, I don't know much about China's healthcare system, I'm making an uninformed assumption based on the fact that a) there are a ton of extraordinarily rural people in China who've never so much as flipped a light switch, let alone been to a "real" doctor, and b) of the massive numbers of people flooding the cities, most of them are pretty poor.

But anyway, this is so tangential that I don't even remember how we got on to China's healthcare system at this point. :)

Re: Elders and such

[fit_2b_tied]

Perhaps people want to sock away their old people because their old people treated them like crap, and it's the only chance for pay back that they have? Just a hunch ;-)

It's only very, VERY recently that I've encountered a few old people that I can respect. All my life I wondered at one point someone just sat around waiting to die, and filling in additional moments with criticism, misogyny and homophobia, but now I know those cruel and whiny types were probably ALWAYS cruel and whiny, and their old age has only made it all the more irritating. Cool, sincere, intelligent and fun people will always be cool, sincere, intelligent and fun, no matter how old they get.

Re: Elders and such

[bratenfrau]

I don't know about that, I think getting old actually does change your personality, or at least behavior, quite a bit. Or at least it exacerbates any undesirable traits you already have. Considering how depressing it probably is to see yourself getting near to death every day when you look in the mirror, it's not exactly the ideal circumstances to bring out the best in most people.

Re: Elders and such

[fit_2b_tied]

Okay, so perhaps i was being a little too optimistic, but I guess what I'm find out is that people who don't have joie de vivre certainly DON'T gain any as a result of getting older... their undesireable traits (say, being an asshole, or picky, or whiny, or thinking the world owes them something), certainly do feel intensified. But, at the very least, I'm happy to have discovered (in more recent years, people unrelated to me) some cool old folks that I wouldn't mind becoming like... some day in the distant future, of course! ;-)