The Gero-Punk Project

For the past two decades, my intellectual commitments have been informed by the Critical Gerontology framework, an alternative approach for Gerontological education, theory, research, and practice that Katz, extending provocative notions from Deleuze and Guattari, refers to as “…a pragmatic and nomadic thought-space across which ideas flow and become exchanged…a magnetic field where thought collects, converges, and transverses disciplines and traditions” (2003: 16).

The Critical Gerontology “thought-space” evokes several strong principles that guide my ongoing inquiry, teaching/learning and praxis, most particularly:

1) the importance of acknowledging and bridging the biographical and the historical, the personal and the political, social structures and individual agency; 2) the privileging of collaborative theorizing, not only with other scholars but with my students, and especially with elders, the very subjects of – and potential partners in – my inquiry as a Gerontologist; 3) the commitment to grappling intentionally with – rather than attempting to simplify or reduce – the complexities of what it means to be a human being; and 4) the imperative that the ultimate outcome of all of my striving must be deeper understanding of human development and aging in the service of personal, social and cultural transformation (Katz 2003; Ray 1999; Zeilig 2011).

What I consider to be especially powerful about Critical Gerontology is that it serves as a meta-framework, a comprehensive sensibility, within which to ask and pursue answers to questions about the most complex features of our travels through the life course as human beings because it foregrounds the recognition that who we are and the work we do in the world are inexorably intertwined (Glendenning 2000). And, most crucially, it provides a lucid counter-argument to the narrow and over-determining normative discourses and practices that still dominate a great deal of the research and theory regarding adult development and aging (Biggs et al. 2003; Katz 2005).

Increasingly as I travel through my own life course I have found myself turning the lens of Critical Gerontology back upon myself. I have been supported in my movement toward deeper reflection and purposeful action especially by Biggs, who, quite boldly, in his discussion of research training for a critical sensibility toward aging experiences, asserts that, “We need, then, techniques by which to know ourselves and the contexts in which we work” (2005: S125). He continues, advocating that “identifying multiple sources of empathic understanding such as similar life events and attending to biography, oral history, and testimonia may be used to enhance a will to understand. The problems of…amnesia of depth, indicative of seduction by simple states of mind, plus their undertow, the avoidance of personal anxieties associated with age, point to a need for enhanced self-reflection of this type” (2005: S126). (You rock, Simon Biggs!)

I remain convinced of the relevance and power of the Critical Gerontology ethos not only for my work-life as an educational gerontologist, but life-wide (and deep!) as a gero-punk.

Works cited/consulted

Biggs, S.  (1999). The mature imagination.  Buckingham, U.K.: Open University Press.

——.  (2005). Beyond appearances: Perspectives on identity in later life and some implications for method.  Journal of Gerontology, 60B(3), S118-S128.

Gilleard, C., &  Higgs, P.  (2000). Cultures of ageing (sic): Self, citizen, and the body.  New York: Prentice Hall.

——. (2005).  Contexts of ageing (sic): Class, Cohort and Community.  Cambridge,        U.K.:  Polity Press.

Glendenning, F. (2000).  Teaching and learning in later life: Theoretical implications.         Aldershot, U.K.:  Ashgate Arena.

Hendricks, J.  (2003).  Structure and identity—Mind the gap: Toward a personal resource model of successful aging.  In S. Biggs, A. Lowenstein, & J. Hendricks (eds.), The Need for Theory: Critical Approaches to Social Gerontology (pp. 63-87). Amityville, New York: Baywood Publishing Company.

Katz, S.  (1996).  Disciplining old age.  Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.

——.  (2003). Critical gerontological theory: Intellectual fieldwork and the nomadic life of ideas. In S. Biggs, A. Lowenstein, & J. Hendricks (eds.), The need for theory: Critical approaches to social gerontology (pp. 15-31). Amityville, New York: Baywood Publishing Company.

Ray, R.E.  (1999).  Researching to transgress: The need for critical feminism in gerontology.  Journal of Women and Aging, 11(2/3), 171-184.

——.  (2000).  Beyond nostalgia: Aging and life-story writing.  Charlottesville:               University Press of Virginia.

——.  (2003).  The perils and possibilities of theory.  In S. Biggs,  A. Lowenstein, &

J. Hendricks (Eds.), The need for theory: Critical approaches to social gerontology (pp. 33-44). Amityville, New York: Baywood Publishing Company.

Zeilig, H.  (2011). The critical use of narrative and literature in gerontology.                 International Journal of Ageing and Later Life, 6(2), 7-37.

So, if intentional aging is anything, it is the commitment to and enactment of certain strong principles life-wide and with as much gero-punk passion as one can muster on any given day.  Okay, that’s cool, you say. But exactly what, you ask, are these so-called “strong principles” that live at the heart of my conceptualization of intentional aging? Thank you for asking and for reminding me to be as  precise as I can even if my ideas are always provisional and emerging.

Here they are, the so-called “strong principles” (And please let me know what you think, what you’d like to add, what you don’t agree with, what does or doesn’t make sense) :

Aging is a lived experience, a life-long journey that we are all embarked upon, though we are at different stages in the process depending on our chronological age and life-course stage.

We travel through the life-course together and we have much to learn by embarking on this journey together; we can develop deeper understanding by intentionally creating opportunities to interact and know each other, to discover our shared interests as well as all the ways we are unique creatures. More specifically, we can think together about difficult issues, we can solve problems and create new ways of thinking and being in the world in order to make life better for all creatures. We are experts on our own lives, and we are teachers for each other. And coming to deeply know each other, being present before each other, thinking together, is about telling each other our stories, as well as creating new stories together. This can become a form of shared legacy-creation.

(Nested glossary moment: Legacy is not only about planning for the future, but it is an activity that happens in the here-and-now, in the context of our present relationships with each other, it happens in all directions and amongst people of all capacities, not only from elders to youngers, but it goes in the other direction, too, and between age-peers, as well, and not only from the well-resourced to the less-resourced.  Creating legacy is about planning for the future, certainly, but it is also about how we care for each other now, how we are present to each other and share our greatest resources, ourselves, most especially our loving attention, with the wisdom that what we do now for each other shapes how the future looks for all creatures on the planet.)

So, the provisional punch-line is:

Intentional aging is a radical concept that has at its core the notion that there are always opportunities for deep development and new ways of thinking and being throughout the human life-course. By “intentional”, I mean to convey that as individuals and communities we can create together ways of thinking about and experiencing the challenges and opportunities of adult development and aging. Wherever we are in our travels through the life course, whatever our lives look like at any given time, we can choose to be present as fully as possible to our experiences.

For me, the promise of intentional aging is that is offers a pathway for deep and meaningful learning, development and growth throughout the life-course. Together we can explore the frontiers of human experience with curiosity and hope, we can transform meanings of aging and old age, and we can make a profound difference in one another’s lives.

As we travel through the life course, as we accompany and witness others as they travel through the life course:

We place our attention and awareness upon our odd, unexpected, flummoxing, and contradictory aging experiences; we accept our experiences and those of others as sacred and real, if yet (or, perhaps, always) unexplainable.

We develop our capacity for aging consciousness and intentionally exercise this consciousness through ongoing curiosity about and pondering of our own and others’ aging experiences.

We try on different ways of moving through the world so as to develop our empathy for and imagination about human (and other creaturely) aging experiences we’ve yet to (or may never) experience.

We ask questions about the meanings of our aging experiences without engaging in analysis, nor with attachment to finding answers. We rejoice in the spilling-forth of yet more questions.

Example One:

What happens when I decide to go slow through the world, to take a more leisurely pace through space and time? What happens when I decide to go more quickly, to speed things up? How does my mind experience the world differently depending on the speed my body is moving? What does slowness allow me to see, to feel, to understand? And what has speed to offer to me? And what is the experience of being able to have agency regarding the speed I travel in my body through space and time? And what might it be like for me someday – tomorrow, next year, in a decade– when I must adjust my sense of agency so as to adapt to my older body which perhaps will have a narrower range of speed-options? What might I still learn from times in my life I’ve already experienced when, because of illness or injury, I was forced to move slowly, sometimes not at all? What might it be like to be told (perhaps with impatience, frustration) by someone who has different options for speed than I have that I must speed up (or slow down?)? Can we negotiate velocity, find a comfortable and companionable shared speed? (Why are these questions important to ponder? What are some other questions to ponder?)

Example Two:

We tried a contemplative exercise on age identity in my Embodiment in Later Life seminar.

I asked students to stand in front of their desks in a circle. Then to stand still, eyes closed, feet firmly planted on the earth but body as relaxed as possible. Then, in an unforced way, to begin breathing, sending their breaths down into their bellies. And, after awhile, I invited them to begin silently counting their breaths…1, 2, 3…

And, after twenty or so breaths, I posed the question: “What age are you right now at this moment, standing still, breathing deeply”? 

After a few minutes of silent reflection upon this question, we opened our eyes, sat down, and engaged in a roundtable discussion about our experiences. 

Some of the questions we explored:

Where does age reside?

In the absence of and in addition to the concepts of chronological age, in what ways do we categorize ourselves and others as an aging person?

In the absence of social feedback – signals from others – how do we know what age we are, that we are aging?

In the absence of embodied feedback – signals from our bodies that we’ve come to associate with aging and age – how do we know what are we are, that we are aging?

What can we describe about the phenomenon of aging, of growing older, from an experiential standpoint? What is our capacity for using words to describe our experiences? When we reach the edge of our capacity to put experience into words, what are other modes for expressing our experiences?

Some of the insights we shared:

The profound lack of solidity of the inter-related phenomena of age and aging and being old. They are concepts, they are experiences, they are social structures, and yet, in the stillness of breathing, eyes closed, they are without form and substance.

The paradox of the simultaneous experience of disembodied, timeless consciousness, on the one hand, and the embodied mind, the materiality of consciousness, on the other hand.

The extent to which our experiences traveling through the life course are shaped by social constructions: about the nature and passage of time; the meaning of chronology; phases and stages of the life course; what we expect to do and when (and what society expects us to do, and when).

And the stories we tell about our embodied selves.

What stories do you tell about your embodied self? When you stand still, feet firmly planted on the ground, body relaxed, eyes closed and you breathe down into your belly, what age are you?

(Some other concepts that may be related to “contemplative gerontology”: Embodiment; Impermanence; Mindfulness; Intention; Space and Time; Stillness; Slowness; Tempo; Wonderment.)