You and I Are Too Old to be Trapped in "Old Age Poverty"
Too Old for This Sh*t: How to Take Your Life Back from an Ageist Society
“I have the immense privilege of not being trapped in old age poverty”
This quote from Kate Motley got me thinking. With respect to Kate, it’s taken out of context, because I wanted to build on what the term inspired.
I keep thinking, as I get bombarded with ads for this and that anti-aging fake product, service, surgery and the like, that so much of the attention that we allow to be diverted to prevention of aging is precisely that which creates “old age poverty.” Little to nothing to do with money.
Maybe it’s time to consider that. I’ll say it again:
…so much of the attention that we allow to be diverted to prevention of aging is precisely that which creates “old age poverty.”
The Blue Zones programs and materials which have so captured so many people were equally alluring to those seeking only to get justification for gorming more pasta and slurping more wine, rather than to look at the Blue Zones lifestyle holistically.
Society, the American/Western culture, does not promote the kinds of self-care and true wellness, born of exercise, good nutrition, community and purpose which drive the success of Blue Zones.
Rather, we appear to be collectively trying to mine the Blue Zones for excuses to perpetuate bad habits. Don’t even ask me about alcohol. The World Health Organization has validated my stance.
Besides, the Zones material has its own issue. Here’s one take worth checking.
We silly humans love quoting someone’s 103-year-old grampy who says that smoking a ceegar and drinking a Dr. Pepper every single day is why he made it to 103. That allows us to argue that drinking soda, which is brutal on the body, is healthy, as is sucking on a lit penis.
Ohfercryingoutloud will ya grow up.
That kind of idiocy, even demonstrated on NPR which I otherwise largely like, is what irritates me.
The prevention of old age poverty, the way I am using this term, is up to us.
Hating our future aged selves robs us blind. Quite literally. We are taught to hate our aging future selves because it serves the American economy to do so, but we have to participate with it for that to happen.
The more we allow society to rob us, the greater the old age poverty we will experience.
For example we all too often allow society to:
Rob us of confidence as we age, by shaming us for aging.
Rob us of body agency by selling toxic crap to us, leading to terrible health outcomes.
Rob us of good health care, by making it too expensive, by trading pills for positive reinforcement and healthy habits, and making money off our misery.
Robbing us of our attention by derailing our brains onto social media, which takes us away from life, from expanding as we grow, from creating deep community, a healthy mind, body and soul which allow us to age vibrantly.
Rob us of here and now by selling snake oil cures, by promising anti-aging fixes that will never work, by promoting stories about mindless morons who spend millions trying to do what can’t be done, and probably shouldn’t be done, which is stop time.
All the above involve, in many cases, choices on our part. Not all, but enough so that you and I can fight back enough to take charge of our lives on our terms. Perhaps the worst is the poverty of friends as we age.
It’s hard enough to age. It’s awful to age alone.
That’s poor. Poorer than any poverty-stricken family I ever met in a Myanmar hill village, people who had nothing to speak of yet everything they needed: each other. They treasured and elevated their elderly. That’s rich.
This morning I sent out two emails to women friends to get back on their calendars for walks and lunches. I am expanding my community here, something that takes work.
For those of you who are middle-aged or late middle-aged, or in denial of late middle-age entirely (okay my hand is up), and things seem to be heading into the toilet, let me assure you that they are.
Okay, okay, don’t throw your laptop at me. There’s solid research behind this.
If you are between, say, 45 and 55, here’s why it feels like the shit has hit the fan in your life. This is pointed at women, but men, too, albeit you guys don’t have our equipment, which makes our journey a helluva lot more difficult.
-You are going through peri-menopause or the entire enchilada. That’s bad enough.
- You may be going through divorce, or already had one. Or your fourth, for that matter.
-You are invisible. Like overnight. In American society we women get erased right around 45. That number keeps dropping. Someday we’ll be invisible at twenty. We are that stupid as a society.
-Say g’bye to slim, cellulite-free thighs, if you ever had them, a largely unwrinkled face, and grays you used to be able to pluck. Now if you do that you’d be bald, up here and yes, down there. You walk into the bathroom and shriek WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?
-Mother Nature, with her seriously warped sense of humor, has decided that you no longer need a waistline, has given your husband (if you still have or even ever had one) your boobs, and given you his nose and ear hair. Your male partner, if you have one, has not only donated extra hair to YOU, he has grown the equivalent of the entire Kentucky bluegrass sod industry coming out of both ears. And his nose. You fight over the nose clipper. It gets bloody. You give him your bra, he begrudgingly buys you the Weedwhacker for Christmas.
-Your youthful liquid intelligence, which kindly began slowing down in your late teens (who thought this up, right?) has now completely petered out at mid-life. If you don’t know what’s happening, especially with all the rest of this cascade of stuff, you might think it’s age (yes, but wait, there’s more) and you think you’re getting dementia blah blah blah. No.
You football fans, here it is: it’s the difference between Tom Brady at 20 and Tom Brady at 45. He cannot do with his legs what he did at twenty, but boy does he know all the formations. Now he has four decades of information, experience, expertise, all of it- this is crystallized intelligence. He still wins games at an age nobody believed. Huge shift, major advantages. Not a loss. It’s a net gain, but it sure as hell doesn’t feel that way at the time.
Brady finally quit but not before he proved a great many people dead wrong in the best possible way. I hate the Patriots and Brady sells snake oil, too, but for my purposes what he did in football still rocks my world.
Hey look, in a world where Belichik could have a 4-13 season and lose his job, anything can happen, right? Signs of the apocalypse. I do love karma.
There’s more, and it depends on the individual, particularly if you’ve engaged in a lifetime of lousy habits. They begin to catch up with us at midlife or sooner. Which is why that’s a fine time to boot those habits and invite our poor beleaguered bodies to get healthy.
Which is also why every Whole Foods I shop in around here is full of grey hairs who look like they’re rushing to stave off the end of days.
They are, frankly. As are we all. And no, thirty pounds of broccoli will not likely stave off cancer but it sure as hell will move the mail, just saying.
Here are some ideas, for what it’s worth. If you’ve been laughing at some of this, chances are you’re already on board most of what’s to follow.
Here are some of the examples of what I’m doing for my eighties and beyond:
I choose to focus my time on my adventure athlete business which not only introduces me to new people but gets me outside into the wild with like-minded people.
I choose not to focus most of my time on Netflix and doomscrolling and all kinds of screen-related activities which take me away from physical activities and friends and my adventure life.
Okay, okay, so yeah, the hours that I spend doing PT to get my ass back in shape? I watch Netflix. I really like looking at Jason Momoa’s abs. Highly motivating.
I choose to purchase fresh fruits, vegetables and other essentials which support health, prevent disease and keep me out of the doctor’s office for lifestyle illnesses.
I choose to move move move move MOVE.
I choose to find humor in the horrible, laughter in the losses, joy in spite of the jests that time and Nature hand us. Such is the development of a modicum of mastery.
Finally,
Be careful what you worship, for it will own you. To that:
Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you- David Foster Wallace, This is Water
Each of the above choices and many others fight old age poverty, which results in a sick mind, sick body, the terrible sickness of isolation, and the loss of some of the very best years of our lives.
You and I have the right and the responsibility to invest in and protect our last years. Nobody else and no pill is going to save us. That’s up to us, up to those friendships who support our best lives as we support theirs.
That takes work. Aging well will be your greatest work of all. Worth every bit of effort you put into it.
There’s more but you get it. How you do it is up to you. If you are in your forties, fifties or over, this is your JOB.
It is our JOB to train for old age.
If you are past middle age, and let me just say it here, it is our JOB to model aging well. There are plenty of examples on Substack. Sticking the Landing, if I can steal from
and others like , the latter of whom is in her mid-eighties. Plenty of us out there living, writing, getting life lived as best we can and slapping back against idiot ageism.Ageism, especially that which we commit against ourselves, is the great Thief of Always.
How dare we steal from ourselves.
How dare we allow society and our sick economy convince us we’re done at fifty. For that steals from our children, who watch how we age, and will emulate us.
Is that the legacy you would hand your precious children?
There is so much to live for, hope for and work for, none of it guaranteed. It takes the kind of self-love and self-respect we deserve so that we enter our last third with enthusiasm and gratitude for the hard work we’ve put in to get ourselves there healthy.
Let’s play.
Thank you for your time today. If this trade of time for your attention was worthwhile, please consider
If you know someone in the muddy middle who could use a little perspective, please also consider
Either way, I so appreciate your taking the time to read my words.
Keep ringing the bell Julia. I think the words 'old age poverty' are powerful in a way others are not and we need to bandy them about as often as we can. I see anti-ageism starting to ramp up. More and more folks (mostly women) are starting to bang that drum, thankfully. And, of course, there is the other side of running for the injections and what not to stave off the inevitable being much more mainstream, but at least age is finally being talked about. Thank you for that.
I've worked in health care for decades and it makes me SO sad when it does become almost too late. I have patients I tried to encourage toward lifestyle changes twenty years ago who now are in panic mode. I mean, it's never too late to make change but the sooner the better.
Great post and exploration of old age poverty. I hope the attitude to old age will change as the balance of older folk changes, and we remain a vibrant part of society.