Who else is working with people who are getting older, and facing challenges associated with aging? As I grow older, I am thinking more and more about what Jane Fonda calls “life’s third act” (watch the TED talk here). I am delighted to discover a burgeoning new field called narrative gerontology. Who else shares this interest?

Ken: March 2, 2014
There is a formal topic I have noticed, with the scary word Gerontology (from the Greek γέρων, geron, “old man” and -λογία, -logy, “study of”; coined by Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov in 1903) (thanks Wiki, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerontology, retrieved 2 Mar2014)
This post is in response to my own situation – not a good role model – but there are some issues with which others may be interested / able to help / ignore.
I am working on a longer post, but the below may give some inkling of what I am about.
“Recently I joined a local interest group, an interest which I have average skill at, and the response was interesting. I went along doing my best to be relaxed and open (doesn’t come easy to some of us). And … in brief… the most positive experience I found was on meeting the oldest member of the group, who was:
kindly, open, smiling, made it her intention to maintain this disposition towards me whenever our eyes met during (an AGM of all things) the meeting.
It seems to me this is how you engage and facilitate.”
So it strikes me that the loss of peer group structures is a big thing amongst this age group (and others) but this age group has lost the energy or the skill or the interest to do much about it (then they become formally
“Gerontological”? when the professionals can then step in and ‘fix the problem’?? – (The problem is the problem … – perhaps?)