The Gero-Punk Project

Hello to you, MindBodyGreen,

I’ve been a daily, committed follower of MBG since its beginning. I’ve much admired the periodic pieces you’ve published that provide a balanced, even affirming approach to the aging journey. I’ve even thought of seeing if I might contribute some of my own writing to the MBG blog. But I have to say that today my heart fell — and I got rather pissed — when I received the direct marketing email titled “THIS is the Next Breakthrough in Anti-Aging!”

I’m cool with the fact that MBG has sponsored content — that seems to be the game, yes?  But I am absolutely NOT COOL with the “anti-aging” discourse.  My friends, the aging journey IS the human journey. Aging is not a failure, nor something to avoid. Aging is a force of nature, it is a gift (and it starts when we are born).

I’ll extend the benefit of the doubt — perhaps Chanel determined the copy for its brand new product, and MBG had to use it.  But the thing is,  MBG could actually change the game by changing the discourse so that it is more balanced, accurate and affirming.  I purchase and wear Chanel lipstick and nail polish not because these products help me pass for younger than I actually am, but because they are legacy products that are at once edgy, classic, timeless and cool.

I am a long-time educational gerontologist, consultant, writer, and activist. I turned 50 this past December and my daughter turned 21 yesterday (and my mother turned 71 on 2/2).  Will you join me in creating a world in which all ages are of value and we don’t spend energy, time and money in pursuit of “anti-aging” but in pursuit of being our best selves at every age and in every stage?

Thanks for listening,

Jenny Sasser, Ph.D.

	A Message From Our Partner

Preamble

Play and collaboration and spontaneity and complexity and creativity and rebellion are at the heart of the Gero-Punk Project. And so is responding to what emerges…such as: The end of Fall Term teaching (and lots of grading!)!  A family emergency! The holidays! And my fabulous 50^th birthday!

At the most recent Gero-Punk Salon we engaged in a communal writing project, a version of what the Surrealist André Breton called the “Exquisite Corpse,” a collaborative creative process that taps into the collective unconscious. In our version of the process, we wrote eight line poems, with each of us writing a line on a sheet of paper and then folding the paper so the next writer could only see the line immediately preceding.  The poems emerged through each writer’s response to the line before, without knowing anything about the shape of the overall piece.  We were all working within the broad themes articulated in the Gero-Punk Manifesto, but each with our own ideas about what those themes might entail.

Here’s is our 7th poem of 8 poems. Amazing how each poem seems to be just right for the moment, don’t you think?

Poem 7

I am fueled by well-intentioned rebellion

rising up to embrace the beautiful possibility

one foot on the earth, another in the stars

Slip-sliding through the universe…risking, learning, connecting

falling down on the ground, but we are still alive

still ourselves and yet not exactly

We constantly shift, adapt and evolve

then return to the start to begin again.

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Written by: Masaki; Cyndi; Glenna; Libby; Simeon; Aisling; Jenny & Jackie

Gero-Punk Salon, 12/11/16