why retire?

Alternatively: “Retirement” is a damaging societal construction that designates the elderly as unproductive, unimportant and expendable outcasts of society.

Retirement also suggests that the ultimate goal of life rests in some form of leisure and withdrawal from meaningful activity. Play cards, collect seashells, watch soap operas, until you get enough diseases that you either die or cannot function anymore.

Alternatively: Why withdraw from life?

Alternatively: Our society does not value the elderly. They were once considered the repository of wisdom and often consulted for their guidance – now we are suspicious of the old and traditional, because they can’t possibly be as sophisticated and knowledgeable as ourselves, because we have you know, all this new knowledge and technology and international cultural exchange and all. And plus, they’re old. Their brains must not work as well. Despite the fact that vintage and recycled clothing have definitely grown trendy, it still seems like the old will never be the new new.

Alternatively: Why retire? I know plenty of people who are well over their 65 years, but are still active, contributing members of society, that debatably have done more than I would on a two-year Peace Corps stint:

• Wilson Goode, who may not have been the best of all mayors for Philadelphia, earned a Doctorate of Ministry at age 62, and then started working as the director of Amachi, a nonprofit established to help children with incarcerated parents. I had the privilege of meeting him recently, and he’s nearly seventy, but still actively involved.
• Gay Brasher ~ My former speech and debate coach from high school. While I was in high school, there was constant talk of her retirement. However, many many years later, not only has she not retired, but she’s also continued to coach the high school team to top ranks nationally, and started middle school speech and debate clubs.
• Jim Di Raddo ~ The new temporary supply pastor at our church is slightly over 75, but still is running up stairs, full of fire and passion, and wisdom.

Activity, rather than rest, is helpful and restorative to aging body:

The brain, like every other part of the body, changes with age, and those changes can impede clear thinking and memory. Yet many older people seem to remain sharp as a tack well into their 80s and beyond. Although their pace may have slowed, they continue to work, travel, attend plays and concerts, play cards and board games, study foreign languages, design buildings, work with computers, write books, do puzzles, knit or perform other mentally challenging tasks that can befuddle people much younger.

But when these sharp old folks die, autopsy studies often reveal extensive brain abnormalities like those in patients with Alzheimer’s… Later studies indicated that up to two-thirds of people with autopsy findings of Alzheimer’s disease were cognitively intact when they died.
…
In 2001, Dr. Scarmeas published a long-term study of cognitively healthy elderly New Yorkers. On average, those who pursued the most leisure activities of an intellectual or social nature had a 38 percent lower risk of developing dementia. The more activities, the lower the risk.
…
Long-term studies in other countries, including Sweden and China, have also found that continued social interactions helped protect against dementia. The more extensive an older person’s social network, the better the brain is likely to work, the research suggests. Especially helpful are productive or mentally stimulating activities pursued with other people, like community gardening, taking classes, volunteering or participating in a play-reading group.
…
Perhaps the most direct route to a fit mind is through a fit body.*

~ Mental Reserves Keep Brains Agile by Jane Brody

Why resign ourselves to collecting seashells and yachts and other meaningless trivialities when there’s plenty do when we are old? If we believe that the world doesn’t matter anymore once we’re 65, then it’s likely that the world will believe that we don’t matter much either, except for perhaps, retirement home sellers and other entrepreneurs pursuing commercially promising opportunities.



*Just a side note as another reason to bike! (Or walk!) Wow I just walked from 2nd and Market to 30th street today. phew!