Today on Tom Dispatch, Erudite Partner offers "A Personal Meditation on Growing Old In a Catastrophic Age." She wonders are we, still healthy Boomers, "old and in the way"? She reports for herself, feeling of "shame" about retirement and also "fear of disconnection."
Yet, in this vital campaign season, she's far from disconnected. She's once again in Reno, NV, training volunteers to canvass voters for Harris-Walz, alongside the labor union UniteHERE. Those cooks and room cleaners are banging on doors for decency and democracy once again. You can join that work by signing up through Seed the Vote.
She explains:
The other fear that keeps me working with my union, joining political campaigns, and writing articles like this one is the fear of the larger threats we humans face. We live in an age of catastrophes, present or potential. These include the possible annihilation of democratic systems in this country, the potential annihilation of whole peoples (Palestinians, for example, or Sudanese), or indeed, the annihilation of our species, whether quickly in a nuclear war or more slowly through the agonizing effects of climate change.
But even in such an age, I suspect that it’s time for many of my generation to trust those coming up behind us and pass the torch. They may not be ready, but neither were most of us when someone shoved that cone of flame into our hands.
Erudite Partner also explains in this article that, unlike her, I have drawn back, that I am accepting that I'm retired from the immediate fray, just doing a little volunteer recruitment from home. After all these years during which I've made periodic forays into the center of the work of progress, this time I get to watch and cheer those who can and should struggle in a more central arena. It's a shock, but it feels right and realistic.
New folks -- get out there and win!
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