Learning to live well within limits: Exploring the existential lessons of climate change and an aging population. (original) (raw)

This chapter explores the existential lessons of climate change and the aging population. I suggest the climate crisis and the challenges of caring for an aging population offer rich opportunities to tell different stories about who we are and what matters. Attention to their existential dimensions reveals shared roots in narratives of mastery that have shaped western cultural and economic aspirations. It opens possibilities for new ways of being. Climate change demonstrates that we are not separate from nature, deigned with the power to control it. Rather the climate crisis reminds those who have forgotten that humans have always been part of nature and must live within its limits. Similarly, while gerontologists like myself may balk at the representation of the aging population as a “crisis,” engaging the fears underlying such notions enables a more sustainable research agenda. Rather than promoting a vision of autonomous individuals mastering aging, gerontologists have a role to play in enabling people to live with limitations, such as mortality, finitude and vulnerability. In our work with aging, gerontologists are well poised to explore forms of agency beyond control. Such an agenda will require deep transformations in the values and assumptions that have oriented the field, as well as new ways of knowing, being and doing. By grappling more honestly with limitation, gerontologists may contribute to the cultivation of sustainable ways of living in the world, as mortal beings who are part of nature.