Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Edited by Ashley Hay, Text Publishing, $27.99.
A timely look at the question of how we age successfully. GR68 probes what ageing means – individually, socially and existentially.
By 2060, the ratio of Australians aged over 65 will have passed one in four. This unprecedented demographic transformation marks a quiet revolution with far-reaching consequences for both individuals and the wider society.
Perceptions of life as we age vary. Editor Hay contemplates the passage of time, the resulting awareness and how it influences acuity.
“It’s the word life that feels crucial to highlight. At a basic biological level, the concept of ageing – senescence, defined as the condition or process of deterioration with age; the loss of a cell’s power of division or growth – is nothing to do with seniority or dotage, longevity or maturity.”
“There are many prisms to bring to bear on age and ageing, maturities and mortalities. This collection includes stories of changes navigated and celebrated, and changes of heartbreaking loss. There are lives recalled, lives observed, lives imagined and challenges laid down: calls for transformation from individual ways of being through to policy and practice at a whole-of-sector level, from standards of care to the contested spaces that surround voluntary assisted dying.”
Getting On undertakes a necessary conversation where insightful exploration of the many truths of ageing, and some causes for celebration, are explored. Examined are the ramifications of the shift in population, along with the transformations of our later years – the positive, the negative, the unanticipated.
Contributing writers provide their perspectives on these questions and more.
As the proportion of older Australians continues to rise, the lived experience of everyone, be they in care or looking after an aged relative, will be intertwined intimately with the phenomenon of longer lives.
However, longevity brings with it urgent issues: postponement of retirement, the question of financing extended life, how to forge a society that can accommodate the needs of a majority older population with the dynamism of the young.
