Pretty Real Behind the Veil

From a Facebook site: https://m.facebook.com/2travelingdogs/photos/a.107764925964382.13451.106802709393937/638346789572857/?type=1&source=48

While I agree wholeheartedly with the message, they need to have this same message with old people on the picture, too. Westernized cultures are almost phobic about aging populations, and too often the elderly, a rich source of oral history, perspectives, wisdom and spiritual balance, are shut out, shut away, and categorically dismissed and devalued. Most are warehoused away from families and community, as very few can afford high end retirement communities, and shortage of quality assisted living housing, and even then, they are still segregated from family, seen and heard rarely. Non-elderly adult disabled usually fare even worse on the “throwaway” spectrum.

I say this without judgment or condemnation, just an observation and supported by extensive expert docs.

By way of contrast to western trends, cultures that typically retain and integrate elderly inclusively with younger generations are much more balanced and stable overall.

Even those with familial caregivers with best intentions and dedication struggle with issues of isolation for elderly and their own with longterm burden of care. The young have least appreciation, very often, for benefits of connection, perhaps because they are swept up in the expansive “doingness” of early life, and less focused on the being element, which the older people increasingly focus on, key to internal balance and vigor….

Food for thought….