Second Wind by Dr. Bill Thomas

Author:Dr. Bill Thomas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

17

IN THE BALANCE

If the vision of a Denialist or Realist outcome from the Second Crucible seems less than appetizing, there is a third possibility. The Enthusiast subculture remains at the time of this writing a small, underground movement, in large part because it embraces aging in ways that Denialists and Realists find almost impossible to believe. Might the Enthusiasts emerge from obscurity and become the dominant cultural force that shapes life beyond adulthood? Given that they exist within an ageist society, the Enthusiasts, along with their beliefs and practices, will likely be considered to be countercultural (perhaps dangerously so), if and when they do come to wider attention.

Enthusiasts gleefully violate the dominant understandings of age and aging that pervade American society, and they endorse a unique and uniquely powerful concept of “life beyond adulthood.” They draw inspiration for their vision from people and cultures around the world and throughout history. Viewed from this global perspective, the Enthusiasts are, strange as this may seem, something akin to the First Crucible’s Squares. Against all odds and in the face of ageist bigotry, the Enthusiasts can sing the words “Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older . . .” and mean them.

The Enthusiasts search for and work to develop a deep, historical understanding of life beyond adulthood. This is something that our society needs but cannot yet appreciate. Although the Enthusiasts’ belief that growth can and should continue across the life span is rarely encountered outside this subculture, an abundance of research supports their perspective. The idea that human beings can outgrow adulthood is at once ancient and noble. The Enthusiasts take the countercultural notion that older people need to grow and radicalize it by insisting that the development of a healthy society is dependent on such growth. Enthusiasts are eager to enter into and fully inhabit an old age they have spent a lifetime constructing.

This desire to outgrow adulthood is powerful, normal, and so far at least, uncommon. It is this frustrated and unacknowledged impulse that accounts for so much of the postwar generation’s foreboding sense that life is out of balance. If the Enthusiasts came to dominate the post– Second Crucible era, they would serve as a massive, magnified and amplified cultural counterweight to the hyperkinetic, productivity-driven cult of adulthood.

The conventional narrative surrounding the postwar generation concentrates on its supposed idyllic childhood and dalliance with dissent, but the First Crucible’s icons (many of whom continue to play a role in public life) will have little to do with the legacy of their generation. The misplaced emphasis on youth and a hardened nostalgia have combined to create a cultural prison from which the Enthusiasts fully intend to escape. Its walls must be breached if the postwar generation is ever to find its way to the freedom it needs to once again grow, to discover, to tackle and solve our most important and pressing problems.

A RUNAWAY TRAIN

It’s been 65 million years since Earth’s last great extinction event.

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