Blog: Breaking Stereotypes
One of the great things about our Pool community is that there are so many different people who've all come together in the one place to share their work, collaborate and simply talk to each other.
One of the newest members of our community is Betty Birskys. Betty is a Sunshine Coast based writer who published her first book when she was 79 and her second when she was 82!
Betty has just created a new group on Pool called 'Do not go gentle'. In this guest post she talks about the background behind the group, and her experience of Pool so far!
"If you are not old, here is a question for you: Do you ever really wonder what it might be like to be old? And if you have already reached the stage of 'senior citizen', how do you view yourself and your age group?
In some countries and cultures, as we all know, or are led to believe, the Elders are still held in some esteem. In traditional societies notice is still taken - as it has been for aeons past - of their long experience of life and the wisdom and serenity hopefully thence derived.
Note that little word 'still'. It implies that once upon a time it was thus in our world, too: 'the wisdom of the Elders' was honoured and respected.
Once upon a time, before ever-escalating changes set in: economic, social, industrial changes that drove people from their villages or tribes, their trades and skills, their security. But no more.
In our developed world changes that have opened up the world for the young have tended to relegate many of the elders to the status of old fogies. Yes, I know: Andrew Denton has a program on ABC television called Elders; but his interviewees have led previous lives of some note, proving themselves worthy of attention still.
We other 'oldies' are imprisoned in a silence that seems to indicate ignorance and dotage. Others speak for us, make decisions for us, often with little consultation with us. Like the indigenous people, we are prime topics of discussion by all sorts of 'experts'. Illiterate, many of us, in the now-vital technologies of the Information Age, we are, like the poor of the Third World, largely voiceless on the deepest issues that concern us: the future of the world that our grandchildren will inherit, our own rights to dignity in health care and in death (cue in Advanced Health Directives and voluntary euthanasia); the loss of the stories of our lives through times of Depression and War and struggle, through love and the loss of love.
Subtle and not-so-subtle changes in society stereotype us: we have become 'consumers', rather than citizens - even Centrelink now refers to us as 'customers'.
And now a new stereotype is emerging: the problem of the aged. We are a present problem that looms ever larger for the future. By 2050, so the experts proclaim, the number of Australians over 85 years will be five times what it is now. Problem, big problem: what to do with so many dependent older people? Does the solution lie in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World?
I would like to see these issues discussed, not only by the current crop of elders but by those who will inevitably, eventually, if they by-pass the alternative, reach that stage of life themselves. For to quote the Bard: 'Golden boys and girls all must, like chimney sweepers, come to dust'. Think about it. Time to talk about it?
I joined Pool in the hope of such talk, of such a discussion. It has been a wonderful journey so far, and I am only at its beginning. For years my computer was little more than a glorified typewriter; I made timid excursions into email and basic Internet searches. With the guidance of the Pool Team - thank you Andrew and Jonathan - I can now cruise The Pool with some confidence, am learning to dare to press hitherto verboten buttons. (Verboten by the paralysis of fear).
I hope that others, especially but not only in my own 'age demographic', might join me in this exploration".
Thanks Betty! If you're interested in some of the ideas Betty has raised then you can join the 'Do not go gentle' group here.
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Image by Dark_Ghetto28 under this Creative Commons licence.
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