On Saturday, our cohort had a wonderful retreat at the Martin Johnson House, situated on the beautiful cliffs of Scripps Beach/La Jolla Shores. The morning was a bit damp, but I thought the rain only helped to enhance the natural scenery in and around the Scripps Campus. I really liked the lecturette, which covered a wide variety of topics pertaining to older adults in the United States and the struggles and misconceptions many of them face - it felt like a great recap of USP 145, a class that I thoroughly enjoyed and the class that led me to applying to the Life Course Scholar Program. A few memorable highlights of the day included our guided hike and our activity where we imagined our lives 50-60 later from now. I think both activities were so impactful and memorable because aging as a whole is not something I think we enjoy spending time thinking about - or thinking about at all. The whole concept of aging and growing slowly closer to the point in time when we will all pass (another profoundly upsetting topic for many) is not easy to reconcile to diurnal activities and thought processes and is a classic candidate for information aversion (where the mind protects itself from stressful triggers by avoiding actively knowing or contemplating certain thoughts/subjects). I think the overall pathway of change, as well as the possible loss of aspects of life (mobility, independence, for example ) presents a scary and uncertain future that seems less favorable than the present (which may be disproven by the fact that elders are statistically the happiest age group). Hiking up the beautiful but coordinatively-challenging path, I imagined my life without the same mobility I do now - and I realized how inaccessible much of the world would become, and how that is a reality for many in our communities (both by nature and design). Imagining my life as a whole, as well as my surroundings, health and relationships as an elder was so incredibly uncertain that it was not as scary as it was interesting. Seeing so many incredible elders, both in the outer world and in my life, I can only hope to achieve such a full life when I reach that age. Overall, a wonderful retreat to start off the year! I am really excited for what our cohort has in store!
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Andrew NguyenWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
June 2019
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