Live Long and Master Aging podcast

Episode

99

I will never get old

Steven Petrow: Journalist

We will all get old, if we are lucky. Aging is a privilege, but facing up to the inevitable lifestyle changes, could leave some of us in denial. Steven Petrow is an award-winning journalist and author, best known for his candid essays in the Washington Post and New York Times, focussing on what it’s like to grow old. In this LLAMA podcast interview, recorded at TEDMED, Steven reflects on the aging process through the eyes of his parents and his own aspirations. He also discusses the challenges posed by loneliness, declining mobility and old age for LGBTQ people.

Published on: 1 Jul 2019 @ 17:19 PT


NOTES & QUOTES


Connect with Steven: Website | Washington Post | USA TodayNew York Times | Facebook | Twitter | TED |

In this interview we cover:

  • Lessons and stories from the way parents live and age.
  • Family tensions and a father’s frustration at growing old.
  • Defiance over getting old.
“We live in our brains a lot and sometimes not enough in our hearts or in our souls.”
  • Like father, like son – shared traits as we age.
  • Stupid things we won’t do as we get old.
  • Illness denial and death denial.
  • Acting our age.
“ I have fantasies of youth, in my mind.  I’m 61 now, in my mind I’m still 38 – or whatever, I’ve just recently bumped it up from 34.”
  • Is death to be feared or is it just another stage of life.
  • Slow down and retire or turn 60 and speed up.
  • Multi-generational living, to stay young at heart.
  • Staying busy and living long.
“We have these stereotypes of what it means to be older and often they are divorced from the reality or from our own health.”
  • Making sense of contradictory studies into health and aging.
  • The scourge on loneliness.
  • Why the LGBTQ Stonewall generation is being forced back into the closet as they seek care in assisted living facilities.

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