Preface: The Power of Community

The dream of a healthy, carefree, comfortable, and adventurous retirement is alive in all of us, regardless of whether it is realistically attainable. It proclaims liberation from the decades of deadlines and pressures that sum up work—the freedom, as one former captive to work put it, “to cultivate our inefficiencies.” Never mind that work has provided the structure, the goals, the meaning, and the rationale for our lives for so long; to a weary and aging achiever, retirement offers a chance to radically rethink self-realization, to see it as a matter of undertaking things one never had time for, as an opportunity to take care of oneself at last.

No one is expected to face retirement unprepared. Employers provide counselors and seminars on retirement planning and savings strategies; communities offer support groups, tennis games, and coffee klatches; grandchildren become accessible and desirable companions; and self-help books fill the “shelves” of Amazon and Barnes and Noble with catchy titles like Don’t Retire, Rewire!, The Joy of Not Working: A Book for the Retired, Unemployed and Overworked, or How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free. Yet the prospect of unlimited free time challenges even the most educated, the most organized, and seemingly the most prepared. To take liberties with Bette Davis’s legendary line: “Retirement is not for sissies.” Leaving the haven of work brings changes, not all of them welcome.

It is liable to bring a new awareness of memory lapses and physical limitations, a feeling of slowing down. It raises the specter of self-examination— frequently painful—a questioning of how much we have really achieved, whether we have realized our potential, and the larger question of “unfinished business.” But retirement may also prompt a sense of gratitude for the things that really matter, a forthrightness and clarity about politics and worldviews, a heightened sense of empathy, and a coming to terms with human mortality.

The authors of New Pathways for Aging address the afflictions that can attend retirement but go beyond the pain of loss (of work, a life partner, a home, and notions of self-worth) to find unimagined opportunities for transformation. “The essays here find new beginnings as well as endings,” says Hy Kempler in his article on identity. “They deal with transformations precipitated by retirement, aging and a new social setting, all of which can generate internal changes affecting self identity.” Far from sounding an end to new life experiences, retirement can provide the very change that makes possible the continuing development of our identity.

Optimal conditions for personal growth exist at the Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement. A community of 550 intellectually vigorous retirees thrives, devoted to pursuing wisdom through learning, exchanging experiences, and creating friendship and community with others from diverse backgrounds and careers. For each of the contributors to New Pathways for Aging, HILR represents the power of this community to heal, empower, and transform.

HILR members see the role of this community through different lenses. Teaching and learning are fundamental to the experience of community. For example, Maurice Stein, a former professor, finds at HILR the locus for examining the “deeper threads” of his intellectual life. The intellectual openness and natural curiosity of a large and ever-changing group of peer learners with radically different expectations have led him to explore his own human qualities in ways unavailable via the formality of a conventional curriculum. Class members “bring equality, cooperation … and recognition to the classroom,” he marvels. “They’re embracing mystery, not resolution.”

Stan Davis explores and extends these themes in his trenchant account of the parameters of the HILR experience. Particularly striking is his suggestion that, deeper than what is learned, “the act of learning itself may be the love object” for many members. No less striking—and intensely relevant to the concerns of the HILR cohort—are his views on the importance (or unimportance) of consciously remembering what has been learned in the study groups, a discussion that surely deserves to be pursued in the future.

For Rhoada Wald in “The Culture of Aging,” sharing the learning and aging process has brought a heightened consciousness of other points of view, a critically important understanding of self, and above all, a comfort in the broad acceptance inherent in belonging to a community. “Facing the past and present together makes each more fulfilling,” she quotes one member as saying. “Aging makes me think about who I am …. I am free to think about things I would never have contemplated before … I am not as concerned with what others think.”

In “Community,” Prudence King and Peg Senturia ask how a “shared commitment to intellectual activity” fits in the panoply of their human and social needs. A sense of belonging ranks high in their explanation of individual and communal success. “Belonging to HILR affirms our identity as learners and doers …. Sharing thoughts in study groups enhances the intellectual experience and creates stronger bonds …. Annual rituals [like the opening convocation, the announcement of new courses, or holiday and end-of-year parties] … provide a rhythm for our lives … and give us the occasion to affirm our belonging as a whole group.”

The pursuit of new intellectual goals, organized activities, spontaneous conversations, and new and lasting friendships feed one another at HILR. New Pathways for Aging looks at conventional narratives of decline and loss in aging and takes them apart; the power to create a positive self-image in retirement undergoes careful and sympathetic examination and emerges as a cause for celebration. These candid and thoughtful testimonies make it clear that the role of the HILR community in this transformative process—as ground and as catalyst—cannot be overstated.

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