Ambassador for the aging to promote cause here
Hails understanding as key to ‘elderhood’
Americans worship youth. And age is considered a medical condition. That leads people to buy “miracle beans” to try slowing or reversing the process unsuccessfully. We celebrate the young and hide the old in nursing homes, which are now more numerous than Starbucks.
When we do celebrate aging, it’s usually because an old person did something youthful. Actual cases include an 80year-old climbing Mount Everest, a 96-year-old man fathering a child and a 101-year-old running a marathon.
These are some of the humorous, passionate and even profound thoughts of Bill Thomas, a Harvard-educated geriatrician who stresses that age is a stage of life. Adulthood follows adolescence and precedes “elderhood,” which he recommends entering with earned grace, dignity and, yes, maturity, much the way one expects an adolescent to enter adulthood.
Dr. Thomas, 55, will speak at 7 tonight at the Carnegie Museum of Art Theater in Oakland as part of his 30-city “Age of Disruption” tour. He’s known for using humor, novel insights and even fire-and-brimstone passion to pontificate about “life’s most dangerous game” of aging.
“It is time for us to start challenging and questioning and overcoming some of society’s misconceptions about aging,” he said. “There is more meaningful aging, and that’s why I’m coming to town.”
The self-described “nursing home abolitionist” said such homes serve as penitentiaries for the elderly, making them victims of “a cult-like devotion to youth in America.” Celebrating youth while denying the virtues or aging is an idea long “past its sale date.”
“It’s time we shake ourselves out of the misery of aging and repurpose and restore the wonders and integrity of the second half of our lives,” said Dr. Thomas, who is the author of “Second Wind: Navigating the Passage to a Slower, Deeper, and More Connected Life.”
As one of only 6,000 geriatricians in America, with numbers shrinking, he said the topic requires him “to be more entertaining, fun and interesting than the mere ‘miracle bean’ salesman.
Giving up the illusion of immortality, he said, provides a greater sense “that every day is valuable and every sunset is precious and it gives us a spectacular gift of understanding. You are playing a dangerous game. Play it well and play it with gusto.”
Eric Rodriguez, an associate
professor in the Division of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, said he agrees with Dr. Thomas’ general message that we treat aging as a medical condition, with little success in reversing chronic disease. Rather than devote endless resources to treating these diseases, he said, it’s time to let people live their final years with comfort and dignity.
“I think he’s saying things that need to be said, and hopefully need to be heard,” Dr. Rodriguez said. “It’s not just changing health care but helping people as they experience the stages of life to make it more accommodating.”