Transcript

Elderhood rising -- the dawn of a new world age | Bill Thomas | TEDxSF

Translator: Theresa Ranft
Reviewer: Peter van de Ven It's really nice to be with you today. I was pretty excited
to be invited to join you. You know, this kind of opportunity
doesn't come to my kind very often. I'm a physician, but I specialize
in the care of older people. And we geriatricians,
we are a pretty rare breed. You might not realize it,
but the United States of America has only 6,000 geriatricians
in a nation of 300 million people. Even worse, that number
is not going up, it's going down. So, for a lot of you,
this actually might be the only time you ever get
to see a geriatrician ... (Loudly) ... live, and in person! (Applause) (Cheering) Take pictures if you want. (Laughter) And while you do,
I'm going to ask a question. Why would an aging society have a shrinking number of doctors
prepared to take care of older people? The answer actually comes
in just one word: agism. You know, if you go around making jokes
based on another person's gender, that's sexism. If you make jokes
about another person's race, that's racism. But if you joke about somebody's age, that's called situation comedy! (Some chuckling) And if you keep watching television,
the next thing you'll discover is that all the leading voices,
all the experts on aging, are all anti-aging gurus. And this is true even though
in the entire history of the world, not one person has ever grown young. Even though our aging
is actually hard-wired into our DNA, we persist in thinking of aging
as if it were a technical problem. It's not a technical problem; it's a design problem. And here's the magic: Unlike all other
living creatures on this Earth, human beings exert
conscious control over their life cycle. Around the world and through history, human beings have given that delicate arc
that stretches from death to birth a myriad of forms. When Shakespeare looked at the world,
he saw a life in seven acts. In our society, we are presented with
and compelled to accept a life with three stages: childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. And these life stages,
they're not just labels, they're incredibly powerful filters through which we put all of our thoughts,
feelings, emotions, and sensations. In large part, who we are
and how we are in the world is defined by our statuses: children, adolescents, or adults. And this is actually part of the problem. You see, we inhabit our life cycles
so fully and completely that we've missed a radical change. It turns out that as all of us
have been moving through the life cycle, the life cycle itself has been changing. Here's how it worked: About 60 years ago, an enormous generation
was born into American society. It was so massive and dense
that, really, from the very beginning this baby boom generation actually had the power
to bend our culture. It was like a massive,
cultural neutron star. And not only could it bend culture,
it could magnify the stage of life as the boomers occupied it. I can give you a pretty
dramatic example of how that worked. In the 1950s, adolescence was seen
as kind of a quirky little period where people had little teenage problems
before they grew up. I mean, everybody has
seen Happy Days, right? Well, what happened 15 years later when that massive generation
slammed into adolescence? I'll tell you what. They set off an earthquake that just pegged
the cultural Richter scale. I mean, if you have one teenager, she might [sneak out the house
to buy a cigarette]. If you have millions
and millions of adolescents all pulsing with countercultural fervor, they're probably going to surround
the Pentagon and try to levitate it. (Laughter) In fact, as the boomers emerged out of childhood
and slammed into adolescence, they created their first
generational crucible, and it almost set America on fire. Now, the good news for all of us,
personally and culturally, is that adolescence does not last forever. And as the boomers began to exit
adolescence and discover adulthood, all of the sudden, youthful rebellion
didn't look quite so nice. Playtime was over. All those humdrum virtues of predictability and reliability
and performance, all of the sudden, they were magnified. And they became [counter]cultural virtues. You can see this by looking
at America's bookshelves. In the 1960s, they were loaded up with titles
like "Be Here Now" by Ram Dass, and "Steal This Book," by Abbie Hoffman. But 30 years later, when the boomers were actually inhabiting
the center of adulthood, you know what? They became massive consumers
of efficiency porn. Oh, you know what I'm talking about. That book you read on the plane
about [have unlimited] defectiveness. The book you see in the bookshop that says there's only 86,740 seconds in a day and you don't want to waste a single one. "Multitasking made easy." What happened is that we enlarged
and magnified and accelerated adulthood so that real adults take pride
in how damn busy they are. "Whoo! You wouldn't believe my inbox!" "I have no time, I'm so busy!" That's not a complaint, that's bragging. (Laughter) Now, I'll say this on behalf of
the adults in the room. You know, we adults, we love the smell
of electrons in the morning, 'cause they smell like victory! We've got a hypercaffeinated, hyperactive, hyperconnected adulthood. If the only problem was
that the people living in the middle of it couldn't see that there is
something wrong with that! If that was the only problem,
I probably wouldn't be here today. But ... we've also grown adulthood
across the lifespan. I want to talk to the people in the room who are the children
of the baby boom generation. You know who you are. Your generation, unlike
almost all other human generations, experienced a childhood
that was significantly different than that of your parents. For the most part, in most cases, your parents experienced childhood
as a kind of safe harbor, a lacuning of time and space that was generally set aside
for growth and development. You experienced childhood as a staging ground
for an assault on adulthood. (Laughter) You had more leagues
and lessons and more tests and more productivity-based
evaluations of your performance than was really right or good. Your childhood was worked by the incredible cultural power
of your parent's generation. You lived an adultified childhood. Now, I mean, I happen to be a geriatrician so it turns out
I'm also interested in aging, and it turns out
that older people also know the whetted lash of adulthood. In our society, older people
are constantly measured by and diminished according to
that ugly five-letter word: still. The adults in the room
all know how to play this game. You can play with me,
we'll do it together. Oh, yeah. My uncle Max, wow! Ha-ha! He's 86, and he ... (Audience) Still! ... drives! (Laughter) Ho! You don't think
that's something, you know. Ha-ha! My dad, he's 87, and he ... (Audience) Still! ... works every day. Oh, [that's nothing]! My great grandpa
just got back from climbing K2. (Laughter) He's 96. Hey, he's in Florida now because he ... (Audience) Still. ... loves to water ski, (Laughter) barefoot, (Laughter) in the nude! (Laughter) Older people have a standing
in the American society only to the degree that older people
can do the things that "young" people do. And what happens to them if somehow
they can't still do what young people do? They disappear. Or more accurately, they are disappeared. Our society operates a vast archipelago
of old-age institutions. Believe it or not, America has more nursing homes
than Starbucks coffee shops. 1.6 million people are confined
to those institutions right now, and you know what? Their only crime is frailty. And despite this, most of them
are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole. We've been told, we've been instructed, that the problem is aging, but that's wrong. Aging is not the problem. It's our obsession with youth, our excessive devotion to the virtues
of youthful adulthood. It is youth that is throwing
our lives out of balance. It is adulthood
that is sucking the pleasure and the joy out of our daily existence. We are living in a society afflicted
by a malignant enlargement of adulthood. But I'm not worried. You know, America might have
more anti-aging gurus - I'm sure it does - than geriatricians. The anti-aging movement might completely dominate
the media and publishing - I think it does. The anti-aging industry might
pump out billions of dollars of profit, but I'm not worried. I actually accept aging. I embrace aging and I endorse aging because it is aging
that is going to save us. I've spent most of my adult years
in close company with older people, and in those years, they've taught me one single iron truth
that is just beautiful. It's this: Every day we all wake up one day older. What? You're not impressed? (Some chuckling) This is unbelievable! This law has the power
of water over stone. This law literally cannot fail. I'm actually excited about aging because aging is going to work
a piece of magic on our society. You see, the boomers,
even though they like to think they don't always have
to follow the rules, they have to follow this rule. And every day, the members of the post-war generation
wake up one day older and one day farther removed
from the epicenter of adult power. Hmm! Every day, the boomer generation
wakes up one day closer to a radical reconsideration
of youth and adulthood. Every single day American society
moves closer to a collision between the post-war generation
and the end of adulthood. And let me tell yer - grab the popcorn! Because we haven't seen
anything like this since the first crucible years
when the boomers entered adulthood. I'm telling you, what's going to happen? Millions of people are going to try
to deny the reality of their own aging. Millions of people are going
to be burning with desire to avoid life's next
great developmental challenge. But still, it will come. I'm really glad about that. The reason I'm glad is that as the post-war generation
begins to leave adulthood, they're going to open a passage into something
that the people in this room barely believe exists - we are going to begin finding out that there's life beyond adulthood. (Whispering) Oh, yes. There is life beyond adulthood and it has a name. Its name is elderhood. And I stand before you today
as its ambassador. Listen to me. Trust me. Elderhood is real. It is rich, and it's deep, it's meaningful, and is ancient, and it can be yours ... (Some chuckling) ... if you're willing
to outgrow adulthood. You know, when a person
is unable to leave childhood and enter into adolescence and adulthood, we say that that person
is developmentally disabled, and it's really true. We're at risk here -
I just want you to know - of seeing a massive outbreak
of developmental disability as the post-war generation
struggles out of adulthood and into elderhood. They need help. And one of the ways we can help them is to begin deflating adulthood, to being to rebalance
the human life cycle. Remember at the beginning when I told you that this is really a design problem? The key to our future happiness is to use our skill
and our minds and our hearts to redesign the human life cycle, to build a new life cycle
that is better balanced, less adultified. We need to do this
because our society needs elders. We need them more than ever before. We inhabit a society that's run
by adults without elder supervision. That's got to change! Now I want to say one last thing,
and I'll leave you. I know perfectly well that there are people in this audience
who are going, "Wow! Embrace aging? Not sure I can handle that." And there are people who think maybe
I'm discounting the difficulties of age, not being honest about them,
and I'll tell you this: Perhaps more than
any other person in this room, I understand the difficulties of aging. I am intimately familiar with them. But I can also tell you aging is good. So when you think about my talk
and you think about what I've had to say, remember this: I did not come before you
and promise, as others have done, that you would live a thousand years
and be young on the day you died. Instead, I came before you
and reminded you that our aging and our ultimate mortality
are cornerstones of our humanity. Now is the time for us
to begin rebuilding our life cycle. I am the ambassador from elderhood, and I came here today to remind you: We are all elders in the making. (Applause) (Cheering)