Where did the elders go? It’s complex. A perfect century-long storm of wars and progress has transformed ageing in the West into some kind of endless summer for the soul. Now, as we live longer than any generation in history, we’ve inherited a cultural wound so deep that many approaching our autumn years (50+) can scarcely recognise it.
Developmental psychologists see it all the time, people in nearing retirement, who are still stuck in late adolesence and early adulthood. They simply never grew up.
The post-war generations inherited a fractured lineage. Their elders, shaped by depression and war trauma, carried stoic silence masking deeper developmental arrest. This produced the West’s first elderless generation, caught between traumatised parents and unresolved youth, never witnessing genuine elderhood in action.
With unprecedented lifespans stretching before us, those now crossing the threshold into life’s autumn season face both wound and invitation. We stand at a crucial crossroad: perpetuate stunted development through these extended years, or choose the challenging path of rebuilding elderhood itself.
Like most born in the 20th century who had to parent themselves, we must now learn to elder without elders – and do so for more years than any previous generation.
The crucial tasks of late-life individuation and soul-based maturity has been replaced by what Jung warned against: the tragic attempt to live life’s afternoon by the program of life’s morning.
It is time to reimagine eldering.
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This extract forms the Introduction to my new manifesto, Decenter Everything: The Unconventional Approach to Eldering in an Age of Immaturity.Available now, worldwide in paperback and Amazon Kindle.
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Also available through bookstores, and online retailers worldwide.