Weekly Update 5 - Ageing (Feb 08 2021)
🗓️ Theme of the week: ageing 🗓️ 10 links 🗓️ Freebies, books, albums, articles 🗓️ Premium post - sneak preview 🗓️
Quote of the week
What I'm reading
"This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism" by Ashton Applewhite. I loved this book when I first read it, and I love it still, as I'm preparing for Friday's premium update. Packed full of positive stories and stats, this is the antidote to ageing anxiety many of us might need.
"Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic" by Alison Bechdel. A graphic novel about, well, everything: the author's father, her relationship with him and with others, growing up, growing old. Good for a long winter evening.
"The Luckiest Guy Alive" by John Cooper Clarke. It's arguably best to listen to these poems, than to read them by yourself - but since a live performance isn't on the cards anytime soon, this is the next best thing. Lots of fun and plenty of punk nonchalance in each stanza.
(Please, note: if you go ahead and buy a book using one of the links above, you’re supporting a non-Amazon bookshop, and I may get a percentage of the sale. You don’t pay any extra though.)
What I'm hearing
"Idiot Prayer (Nick Cave Alone at Alexandra Palace" by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. A lockdown project which only Nick Cave could pull off - a man, a piano, songs in a cavernous empty space. Somehow, it all carries.
"Your Queen Is A Reptile" by Sons Of Kemet. This is the jazz album to put the spring back in your step. Gritty, bouncy, in-your-face.
"Hejira" by Joni Mitchell. Because I miss road trips, I devour travelogues. Joni's album delivers that open-landscape state of mind straight between my ears.
Elsewhere online...
"The tyranny of work" (Aeon / Jamie McCallum). This is a long read, and well worth it. A subtle but unwavering discussion of the demise of work, and what happens when the concept of "work ethic" fails to adapt.
"Off-road, off-grid: the modern nomads wandering America's back country" (The Guardian / Stevie Trujillo). Pertinent to "Hejira" and the Aeon piece above, and also interesting to see the age of many of today's nomads - not all of them are eighteen-year-old instagrammers, you know.
Freebies, deals, and offers
"Developing Career Resilience", by Open University. Freebie, but extremely valuable. This should have gone into our Resilience update a few weeks back. Helps build a resilient approach to work.
Openmoji project. I know, most emoji are free anyway. But these are lots of fun, they can work in bigger projects, and are under a CC license - which means you can use them more widely.
This week's premium post: a sneak preview
Age is on the agenda this Friday. The premium post will explore getting old, resisting ageism (in others, and in ourselves), and battling some age-related myths and stereotypes.
Here are four good reasons to subscribe today, and make sure you get lifetime access to the premium post:
We will be discussing popular approaches to ageing, and how they might affect you.
We will be examining (and busting) some myths around getting old.
We will be quoting, and exploring, useful sources of inspiration for learning to become old.
You will gain access to an "Old Person In Training Resource Pack" - free for you to download.
I'm looking forward to sharing this post with you - until then, take care!
Vic