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Hi Miha and thank you!
A couple of points - you contrast older people in positions of power with
younger people who want to participate in that. And I agree of course. But
this is not the normative state of the elderly, at least in the U.S. and I
believe elsewhere. There have been a number of exposures of old age homes,
'retirement' homes, 'nursing' homes, 'eldercare,' etc. And that is much
more typical. That is where the horror lies. (A story. My father died in
2011 at the age of 97; he was active until he was 95. He had nursing care
at home. The woman embezzled him out of a considerable sum of money and
goods. When he died, when we went down to the house, we found shit stains
all over the floor around the bed. In other words, he wasn't cared for
properly at all; he was robbed, lied, to, basically discarded. At least he
was home.)
More and more studies have focused on the loneliness of old age; people
left isolated. I believe that this, more than anything is responsible for
the deterioration of mental capacity in old age. Without community, one
has nothing and collapses. (I remember studies of salarymen in Japan years
ago as another example.)
In the artworld, there are walls; I fight them, uselessly as well, all the
time. It's a miracle I get to show. I'm a nuisance. It's great there are
older artists who are sufficiently established that they and their work
survives and flourishes. But they're the exception. (An example - we had a
friend in our building, Mark Esper, who died of cancer. He had moved with
his wife to Staten Island to save money; he had heavy medical expenses.
His art was brilliant, cybernetic work built from the ground up, a table
for example with two robots, one of which made a drawing as it moved
about, the other which erased it. There were sensors which kept them from
colliding or falling off. Anyway, the last time I spoke to him, he said he
was in the attic, looking at all his work there, almost in tears on the
phone, saying that he wanted his work to survive, he didn't want it to all
disappear. That's the last time I spoke to him.)
I'm so glad so many people are dealing with this issues now! I hope at
least this discussion - and for that matter all the discussions on empyre
- will lead to perhaps the smallest change in consciousness, in caring, in
listening - the list has educated me -
Best, Alan
On Sun, 29 Sep 2019, Miha Colner wrote:
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