Always Be Ready To Try an Old Experience

Do you get the feeling that too often, new experiences are inferior to old ones? That the hip novelty bandwagon goes too fast, and the new doesn't stay "new" as different newly-correct behaviors and products are forced upon us ...? 

One longs for Old Experience, like the practice of turning a blind eye to other people's habits, like accepting that the world is full of diverse opinion, and like getting Life Guidance from literary classics, not social media.

Thankfully we can still have that lovely Old Experience of turning a printed page. Of looking up a word in a printed dictionary. Of receiving written notes from friends, rather than pinging "notifications".

What about the old experience of physicality when not your smartphone but you yourself knew where you are on a landscape? And there on the landscape, you might see surviving woodland, or smell the scent of mown grass. You might even see some, an old-fashioned sweep of shimmering emerald lawn.

That's the delight of heritage neighbourhoods with Settler Architecture (home-y houses with flowery gardens settled on quiet streets, and pet cats roaming free). And there, is the old-fashioned certainty that you're not being spied on from every wall and roof-top by CCTV.

There's also that old-fashioned habit of people sticking to a gender, or if they choose to gender-blend they just quietly go ahead without a political song-and-dance as if we're all at an endless performance of "SOGI, the Musical".

One longs for an Old Experience of public clock towers and pay-phones, of land-lines, paper money, cheque-books, and parking meters and tip jars that take coins. Without coins, what will we throw into the wishing well when we make a wish? (How about our smartphones?) And what might we wish for? A Society For the Preservation of Old Ways would work well for some.

Anyone can try the Old Experiences that give relief from the downward drag of post-post-post modernity.

 JestJests  

A 'Senior Lives Matter' movement?

       Handicaps are not failures, and we all have some -- physical, social, educational, circumstantial. They may even signal prowess (the best golfer gets the highest handicap, and the racehorse with the most victories carries the heaviest weight). In our society being old is a social handicap. A "dis-ability" is not even required. 

       Too often able seniors are marginalized. For example, when submissions to galleries and journals are invited from designated groups (the disabled, racialized, trans, neuro-diverse and so on), seniors aren't among them. In that regard, seniority really is a handicap. 

       Society, then, isn't more equitable than it was, the musical chairs have merely been re-arranged on the floor. When the music stops, the elderly are the ones most often eliminated. This accomplished tribe is demoted, but in the culture wars ageism gets a free pass, and seniors have no "Senior Lives Matter" movement. Maybe that's because older means wiser and wisdom includes acceptance. Older may also mean tired, as in tired of sectarian battles. 

       Seniors are supposed to retire gracefully, as from a field of battle. Even if still at the height of their creative powers, most don't have that lean and hungry look that signals prowess. 

Leave me alone, I'm tired of sound and fury, I want to cultivate my mind in peace.

Yet we all know people in their 90’s who aren’t really in retreat. They are hungry for knowledge and information. In Canada, people over 55 are the biggest news-consuming group, according to www.marugroup.net/polling.

Staying informed and sharing views about current issues is recognized as an aspect of healthy aging. Ditto engaging in creative pursuits, which are often patronizingly considered appropriate to the retirement years: people are more willing to admire the paintings which older citizens exhibit in craft fairs than they are to listen to their political views.

       According to https://rishihood.edu.in/creativty-and-creative-ageing/enior, UN statistics reveal that the 65+ age group is a fast-growing part of the world population. Currently at 12%, the proportion of seniors is expected to rise to 22% by 2050. Will the rights of almost one quarter of the human race matter less than those of the other three quarters, in 2050? Where’s the Old Lives Matter movement? 

According to Statistics Canada, “from 2016 to 2021, the number of Canadians aged 65 and older rose 18.3% to 7.0 million". This  represents nearly 1 in 5 Canadians (19.0%), up from 16.9% in 2016. Older Canadians are staying healthy, active, and socially involved for longer. The cohort aged 85+ has doubled since 2001, and according to projections, could triple by 2046. 

In 1981 BC seniors made up 5.4% of the labour force; by 2016 they made up 11.6%. Yet there has been no preferential hiring for them; on the contrary, in many professions they're forced into mandatory retirement despite being the most experienced and skillful workers on the scene, and despite the "quiet quitting" habit their juniors go in for now. Still, some seniors are taking up more roles in the economy, though without a movement signifying that they matter. What might "Senior Lives Matter" accomplish? For a start, maybe it’s time for art curators, editors and social influencers to add “elderly” to the list of disadvantaged groups from whom they solicit contributions. We could also make a point of supporting post-retirement commercial enterprises launched by seniors. We should encourage seniors to write their memoirs, which will provide tomorrow’s insights about the history of today. Memoirists report from a ring-side seat on the unfolding drama of current affairs, and the longer you’ve lived on Planet Earth the more insightful your judgement will be. Let us all, and our descendants, sample the smorgasbord of wisdom offered by elders in their memoirs. 

Part of wisdom however is the waning of appetite for conflict and competition. “Sound and fury signifying nothing” loses its attraction. Presumably the closer you get to death the more you concentrate on things that signify something. You might be less inclined to blow your own horn, which is why, where elders' rights are concerned, other groups must help with the "representation". The American Association of Retired Persons says that less than 1% of American grant money goes to seniors' rights and ageing. In Canada, the federal Ministry of Health did announce another $30 million for brain health research this year. Not much is spent on seniors' equity rights however, or on grants for creative projects in later life.

That seniors should be disabled by younger people’s assumptions and dismissals is an unfair handicap. International Ageism Awareness Day, October 7th, is a good moment to think about it.

                                                                                                                JustJests

-- S. B. Julian 

The Very Detrimental Caterpiller

The world is full of meanings we aren't aware of. "The world is so full of a number of things / we should all be as happy as kings", wrote Robert Louis Stevenson, but the world of thought and ideas is overwhelming and we learn to focus. Out of our tiny focus, we extract our own treasured, and rigid, belief system. Most people narrow their awareness just to get through the day. Maybe it's a safety instinct. We no longer aim for a capacious or well-furnished mind; public school systems certainly don't. People are told they need to "feel safe" and not be "triggered". Too often, other people's ideas are seen as "bullying". 

Hence a renewed book-banning mania. One Canadian school system decided to remove any children's book written before 2008, as "detrimental" for the "marginalized" -- including classics like Anne Frank's Diary, The Very Hungry Caterpiller, Anne of GG, and the Harry Potter series (of course).  Schools were instructed to specially support the Afro-Caribbean and indigenous students, and if that's the new meaning of "inclusive", then schools have problems with word definition. Maybe they'll throw out the Dictionary as well, as something detrimental -- maybe thinking it's as bad as the Very Detrimental Caterpiller. 

A womxn, a Genderqueer and a Heterocentrist Walk Into a Bar ...

... and there they meet up with a polyamorist (who orders a beer with a chaser), a cupiosexual (drinks non-alcoholized beer), a greysexual (put water in his wine), a pomosexual (ordered the un-labelled home-made brew), a spectrasexual (gazed for an hour entranced by the menu list), a sapiosexual (only drinks wine with a label in Latin), and a neptunic -- who couldn't decide what to order.  

Did you know how many genders and sexual identities there are and the poetic labels used for

them?

"Rainbows are nothing new to us mixologists," says the philosophical bartender. "People walk in here full of diversity, but once drunk they're all the same. Drunk is drunk -- inebriation's a great equitizer and way to relax and chill in a fragmented world."

 

Ageism and the DYE Movement

I bumped into an older woman I hadn't seen for some time, and found her brown hair had turned a different colour.

Gone grey?

No: pink.

Ah, dyed it. No one goes grey any more, when you can get a whole rainbow in a bottle.

Pride-dye? Proudly striving for youthfulness?

Yes, because ageism is the last "ism". The one we still tolerate.

Ageism is the DYE movement, which moves against the elderly: "Diversity, Youth, Exclusion".

There are compensations though. When they get to a certain age some elders stop worrying about people-pleasing, keeping a job, maintaining a reputation and being politically-correct. Those are the ones who might speak up for their more timid peers:

                                 

                                  Media Visit to Granny's Free Speech Kiosk

Interviewer: So Granny, this is a nice little business enterprise you've made for yourself.

Granny: Yes, censorship opens up a surprising number of commercial opportunities.

Interviewer: So, in taking this opportunity would you call yourself a free-speech heroine, or a trouble-maker?

Granny: I don't aim to be either, although heroism often does cause trouble -- for someone.

Interviewer: Will it make trouble for you if someone decides your speech is too incorrect? Aren't you afraid of being shot?

Granny: Yes -- so this is bullet-proof glass I'm sitting behind.

Interviewer: Ah. Opinions can be dangerous. Maybe you should add a Danger-Pay Surcharge to your fee.

Granny: Really, speech should be free. If someone is wise and broke, I'll express their forbidden thoughts gratis. (But don't tell the rich folks ...) Everything is monetized now. Your own magazine charges buyers or advertisers to read your words.

Interviewer: True. I see you have quite an audience around your booth. Do some get upset if they don't approve when you contradict fashionably-correct attitudes?

Granny: I do get an audience, but no one has to stay and listen if something offends them. The other side of free speech is the freedom to not listen.

Interviewer: You're performing a public service, eh?

Granny: Indeed. I'm retired, I've got my little pension, I can afford to do this because I don't have to please an employer who could fire me for expressing what their pollsters have determined are not the popular public attitudes of the moment.

Interviewer: Well good luck, Granny! Stay safe.

Granny: I'll be fine. The up-side of being an old granny is that by being dismissed by influencers and virtue-signallers, we oldsters are also often overlooked by cancel-culture.

* * *

"Democracy is not about how many people vote but about how many people feel free to say what they think in public".

-- V. Ramaswamy, 2022


"... in the sunset of life ... I feel it my special mission to tell people what they are not prepared to hear."



-- Elizabeth Cady Stanton,1898

Decrepitude-Envy

                      A short play presented at Seniors' and Community Centres                       by the Alexandria Players (https://alexandriaplayers.blogspot.com/)

Three friends -- Liz, Eve, and Rena -- sit chatting over coffee.

Liz:  This will be the last time we get together for coffee 'til spring. Which warm climes are you two off to this winter?

Eve:  Why is it always "climes", not climates, when people talk about  holiday plans? 

Rena:  Yes, why? And always "wanderlust", never just plain travel.  

Eve:  The romance of the voyage, I guess. The journey. Anyway, to answer your first question, I'm off to Arizona. If I even get past the airport, that is. Airports are so fussy about security now. I never know what I can take onboard.

Liz:  I know. I just hope my new metallic hip-joint won't set off alarms.

Eve:  You're lucky you've only got one. I've got two new hips and a new knee to worry about.

Liz:  Of course, I've got my pacemaker too.

Eve:  What with all the titanium, plastic in our cataract-free eyes, gold in our teeth and computers in our hearing aids, we own more mineral wealth than some of the smaller countries!

Liz:  You've got computerized hearing aids?

Eve:  Yes. The "SmartEar". Much smarter than a phone -- you program it to recognize phrases you don't like so it can automatically digitally delete them. There's a barrier between your ear and your brain, so you can filter out opinions you disagree with. 

Liz:  Brilliant! Much better than writing Letters to the Editor about them. Robotic Intelligence, eh?

Eve:  Somehow it uses the gold crowns on your teeth as a conductor of ... something or other ...

Rena:  (drily) Thus transplanting your brain into the robot. Oh, the irony.

Eve:  No Rena, gold ... not iron. Sounds like your hearing's going too. You need a SmartEar.

Liz:  It's my pills I'll be worried about -- airports are so fussy about drugs.

Eve:  (sighs) Yes -- remember when being beyond a certain age meant being beyond suspicion too?

Liz:  No longer. My cousin was accused of smuggling drugs in his colostomy bag.

Eve:  And the airport security line-ups are so slow. But I've got a terrific new walking stick for passing the time: the knob comes off the top so you can keep your -- shall we say -- "energy drink" inside it. And there's a button on one side that makes an umbrella pop up if it rains. But here's the best part: another button can make bullets shoot out of the shaft!

Liz:  Bullets??

Eve:  Yes, it converts into a gun! So if there's one of those terrorist incidents, you're armed. Brilliant eh?

Liz:  Wow, that's what I call concealed-carry.

Eve:  I predict walking stick firearms will soon be legal.

Rena:  (rolling her eyes) So the airport check-in desk has a sign saying "Triggering language will not be tolerated", yet triggers on guns will be? I'm so glad I never travel.

Liz:  Oh but you should! Think of the fun you're missing -- once you get out of the airport, that is. I take a few pills to calm myself in pre-boarding. I've got this great new pill-dispenser in the shape of the Prime Minister. To keep track of how many pills you've forgotten you've taken, they come out of his mouth one by one. You can pretend they came from a government Pharmacare plan, rather than being paid for out of your own pocket.

Rena:  (drily) At least you didn't pay for all the metallic hardware yourself.

Liz:  A benefit of being a senior. Have you noticed all the airport staff look about twelve? And that they act weird? Like they all have autism or mood disorders or something that young people go in for.

Eve:  Yeah, like "social anxiety". What is that anyway? They should make a Prime Ministerial Pill-Dispenser for it. Where did you get that product? I wonder if there's one with pills coming out of his other end -- like so much of what politicians say.

Liz:  I'll send you the website URL. Airport staff probably get them on an employees' health plan -- the "Anticipatory Mental Illness Plan".

Eve:  Young people today have so many ailments it's unbelievable.

Liz:  I call it decrepitude-envy. 

Eve:  It takes a life-time to become decrepit, but no one wants to earn their diseases any more. Anyway (she lifts her coffee mug in a toast) I'm off to buy my airline tickets. See you next Spring, Chickens!

Liz and Rena:  'bye-bye ... 'bye-bye ...  Happy Flight-Trails! 

-- They make a last toast with their mugs.

Literature-Lib: Looking back at the days of liberated fiction

"Lionized" by the literary establishment during his/her own time, many a once-popular author is now denounced for racism, sexism, transphobia, and general deficiency in "DEI" credentials.

One such is Mordecai Richler, whose novel Barney's Version, lavishly praised upon publication, received Canada's Giller Prize 1997. It was "charged with comic energy and a wicked disregard for any pieties ..." says the blurb on the cover.

Disregard for pieties is still called wicked, but no longer in a complimentary way. "Wrongthought" is no joke; it's even being criminalized.

The hero of the novel (Barney), when falsely accused of variegated personal and professional immoralities, in his own defence responds with his own "version" of events -- and his entertainingly provocative views on culture and politics. 

If he thought the latter were bad back in the 1990s, he'd be horrified at the atmosphere today. Satirical humour was his weapon against political correctness, but his weaponry did nothing to stop the ignorant armies clashing even more on our darkling plain of wokeness. (Matthew Arnold too, writing at the dawn of liberal humanist tradition, would be horrified to see the 21st century's plain, swept with even more "confused alarms of struggle and flight".)

As for the Giller Prize (a prize Richler would never be nominated for now), and the ideology of present juries: how could change happen so quickly in the literary world? Such shrinkage of imagination and narrow-minded condemnation of free thought? How could the imposition of obligatory self-censorship have gone so far so fast? Yesterday's lionized are today's verminized.

A literary critic writing in 2022 objected to Richler opposing the "special pleading" of politically correct groups, and his disagreeing that Western society is unjust toward minorities. Indeed, if he was writing today he'd probably be sued by allies of identity groups who felt triggered, harmed and epistemically violated by his words, although writing today he'd probably never find a publisher at all. Publishers are businesses, and they want to stay in business in a field where personal free expression is now unpopular.

In fact, according to the University of Southern California, we're not even allowed to refer to a "field" in case it brings to mind the fields wherein slaves once worked. Compassionate people may want to save others from hurt, but history will still be history, even if we legislate public ignorance of it.

There were no Anglo-Saxon names among authors on the 2022 Giller prize shortlist, and only one the previous year. Of course, Canada gets more international immigrants every year, but Mordecai Richler might suspect a bit of "special pleading" going on here behind the Giller scenes. Since 1997, when he won the prize, there has been less satirical humour on offer. We live in an era of intellectual straightness, of hearing only self -- an arid environment of cultural grazers who survive on poor soil and poor nutrition, and need much herding.

In an interview on Writers & Company, Eleanor Wachtel noted that Richler had been called "irreverent and smart-ass", and warned that listeners might find the excerpt he was about to read "raunchy". That word seems quaint; today, we'd warn of "toxic masculinity" that might trigger "trauma-spectrum diorder".

Richler himself said he aimed to satirize the absurd while witnessing his own times. If he thought his 20th century times absurd, one can only guess what he'd think about "the times" today. More than a little "out of joint".

Reviews of Barney's Version in 1997 used the words "wonderful, hilarious, gripping, touching and humane". Today they'd more likely accuse him of being "racist, trans-phobic, sexist, stigmatizing and trauma-inducing", and if Richler gave a reading, the de-platformers would be shouting outside and waving placards.