Where Are We Going?
When we began our journey years ago, we did not envision informal conversations leading to a research group, the research group encouraging essay writing, and then the distribution of our first personal essays leading to even more essays and reflections. With the publication of this book and the experience of working with our peers at the Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement, we have a clearer sense of where we need to go, and more importantly, whom we would like as companions.
We would like to share with you what we have learned about how community, learning, writing, and research can enrich the experience of aging. More importantly, we would like to start a dialogue so that we can create wider conversations and perhaps move people to act.
Social networking takes many forms, and though there is no substitute for the intimacy and directness of face-to-face encounters, the Internet has proven that it is possible to bring together individuals from all over to form a community. For that reason, we have created a website to support our dialogues and exchanges:
The site contains resources such as:
• suggestions for initiating conversations on aging;
• ideas for nurturing writing groups; and
• an electronic version of this book
We expect it to evolve in response to reader demand to include a newsletter and conversations (blogs) on topics of interest, such as study group design, friendships, relationships with adult children, identity change later in life, and other research topics on aging.
As the writer May Sarton said in her journal, writing the individual experience tends to be universal in ways that are important to us all. You have heard our voices, and we would like to hear yours as well.
We do not have all the answers to the questions that we have been asking ourselves and others, but we do know where we came from and what we are. We have a sense about where we are going, and we hope we can count on you to help us get there. Aging is a period of life that should not be wasted by the elderly, and as individuals and societies get older, it is up to all of us to make new pathways in the journey of lifelong learning.