Hi Zan, Hi Pa
Volume #11
February 25th, 2024
Dear Subscribers,
We had so much positive feedback about the audio version of our newsletter on Ciudad Juárez that we’re going to try to add a small audio portion, a ‘footnote’ we’ll call it, to most of our pieces from now on. These will be short asides, additions, amplifications, or anecdotes, always connected to the main theme, but material we won’t put into the written version. Since we’re rarely together, we’ll alternate—Zan one time, Pa the next. And when we are together we’ll be sure to do more taped conversations. Thanks, as always, for the feedback, and we hope you enjoy this new feature.
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HI, PA: Without going into specifics, I’ll just say that aging has been in the news a lot lately. Since I am—to put it kindly—much further from that stage of life than you are, I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the process of growing old. Why do you think the older members of society seem to become invisible after a certain point?
HI ZAN: Great question and good choice of topic. My first thought would be that—for reasons we might explore—ours is a society that puts a high value on appearances and physical strength. Too high a value, I’d say.
ZAN: That’s a really interesting point. To me, the clearest example is in the entertainment industry. The movies and TV shows we see, the gossip magazines, the ads that flash across our screens—all of them seem to feature people who are young, strong, and good-looking. Can you remember the last romance movie that came out about an older couple? Or a celebrity who chose not to fight signs of aging and warp their body’s natural transformation in an attempt to look younger?
Why do you think our society values youth and strength so much? And is this unique to America?
PA: My guess is that every society throughout history has valued beauty, though that concept is defined differently in different places and varies from individual to individual. There’s an attempt in the mass media to impose certain very narrow standards of beauty on the communal consciousness, advertisements urging us to take every possible measure to resist the natural process of aging. It’s refreshing to see ‘plus-sized’ models in some ads and magazines now. That’s something. But there does seem to be this constant pressure, profit-driven, to make us feel we need to be thin or flat-bellied, and eternally young.
ZAN: That makes me think of the Just for Men hair dye commercials that always popped up on the golf channel…
PA: Perfect place for them.
In some societies ‘elders’ are highly valued. Our society seems to want to cast them aside, keep them out of sight, push older people into retirement whether they’re ready for it or not. As if they have nothing left to contribute to the greater good. I’m on the younger end of old age, seventy and a half, but even for me the attitude toward older people is annoying at times, as if the measure of my worth should be a lack of wrinkles, the ability to do fifty push-ups, or to never forget a name or misplace an object.
(Quote is from Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to your Life’s Purpose.)
PA: (Cont.) How would you say people of your generation look at people of mine?
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