What does it mean to be old?

[sparky]

By 2020, half the UK population will be aged 50 or over.

Older People's Day is part of a Government initiative called Full of Life, which aims to raise the profile of issues relating to older people and our ageing society.

Coinciding with the UN International Day for Older People, this year's event aims to celebrate the contribution older people make to the community and raise awareness of opportunities available to them.

What are the major challenges for older people today? What is their contribution to society?

[Richard]

Originally Posted by sparky

What are the major challenges for older people today?

Going by my own experience, I'd say been able to walk down the high street at more than 0.00001 miles per hour is the main challenge for older people today.

[JamesM]

Getting old? It'd mean being able to walk down the street without being whooped at from cars, a couple more years and I can start ignoring the drunken mindless wretches. I could also have a proper career without having gallons of oestrogen thrown over me.

Quite looking forward to it actually, luckily I had a mispent youth so I won't get caught in the stupid dirty old man trap either. Oh and sexual harassment in offices, only in modelling agency offices please I do have standards to maintain : )

[include]

You get whooped at James?

[GreenRewards]

Originally Posted by Richard

Going by my own experience, I'd say been able to walk down the high street at more than 0.00001 miles per hour is the main challenge for older people today.

that's the good one - I think, that's all depends on the person's character and 'the power of will' - I am 42 right now, still finding life interesting and got a lot to do, but I know when everything will start to be painful, useless and boring - the best option is suicide. I am not sure now, whether I will have a courage to do that, but I am working on it for years already In my opinion is much better option than crawling down the high street with snail speed...

[addict]

What it means to be old - it means you are invisible and ignored.

An interested article I once read about a journalist who dressed up as a pensioner and was made up professionally to look like one.

The article always stuck in my mind and the overriding thing that came out of it was that 'old' people are basically invisible.

Until of course they get in someone's away.

It's sad really - but old age awaits us all - if we live that long.

[cbosleeds]

I think we age a little less gracefully these days which hopefully means we can prevent ourselves from becoming invisible for longer. The really invisible ones are the younger generation, the under twenties - half of them aren't allowed out of the house cause its not safe, the chavvy end are part of an anti-culture which centres around being virtually invisible and the gothy end just get moved on everytime they try and hangout in a public place - its disgraceful.

[August]

YouTube - Sinead O'Connor and Enya - Never Get Old

YouTube - David Bowie - Never get old

[August]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/us/07aging.html?em

Professionals call it elderspeak, the sweetly belittling form of address that has always rankled older people: the doctor who talks to their child rather than to them about their health; the store clerk who assumes that an older person does not know how to work a computer, or needs to be addressed slowly or in a loud voice. Then there are those who address any elderly person as “dear.”

“People think they’re being nice,” said Elvira Nagle, 83, of Dublin, Calif., “but when I hear it, it raises my hackles.”

Now studies are finding that the insults can have health consequences, especially if people mutely accept the attitudes behind them, said Becca Levy, an associate professor of epidemiology and psychology at Yale University, who studies the health effects of such messages on elderly people.

- Old people in general ought to take more cannabis. - ?

[JamesM]

Yeah load of girls in a car but I was 32 at the time, I'm all of... three years older now so I just get eyed up and groped up in nightclubs. Actually thinking of it happened two nights out on the trot recently... oh well maybe I'll be able to get a proper career next year...

Back to old age though I like a plan I heard, it went like this; they were gonna get to 75 then buy a shotgun and rob a bank. Great plan... confused?

The logic is quite simple ;

A) Get away with it and you have a load of money! Que Spain etc...

B) Don't get away with it and your have your upkeep in prison paid for by HMS Gov for 10 -15 years.

Either option is better than paying for your own upkeep in a nursing home. So 10 - 15 years free living at HMS pleasure, a great wadge of money or losing 100 000 k of savings on a Nursing home.

A great wedge of money is the preferred choice of course.