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Toward an Ethic of Aging I

Wednesday Mar 26 2008

   By Stuart J. Whitley | Bio


About three years ago, I assisted an aboriginal woman elder with a presentation she was doing for the media. She was trying to explain the role of justice as conceived by the first peoples of this continent. Paraphrasing her: first, she said, there is the sky over all of us, then there is the water below. What takes our breath away when we look to the rivers and the forests is the same thing that possesses us when we think about the wonder inside our own bodies. As the moon compels the oceans with forces we can feel (if not fully understand), so is every atom of water linked one to the other in performing the essential tasks that the living earth needs. A rainstorm in the mountains stirs our blood. What we do to the pond in the slough where the horses graze, we do to the world. As goes the fate of the smallest creek, goes the fate of us all. All things are connected.

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Written by admin at Fearless Aging

Tagged with: aboriginal elder ethic justice responsibility wisdom

Depression and Justice

Monday Dec 17 2007

   By Stu Whitley | Bio

This is the second post in a series. Read the first post.


I had my own struggle with depression, brought about by a confluence of events that seemed overwhelming. In spite of my rational training and experience as a lawyer, I was completely disabled by my loss of perspective. I could not see beyond the shadows of perceived (and real) threats. A feeling of being trapped is the best way to describe the sense of hopelessness and abandonment I was experiencing.

Fear inspires the ‘fight or flight’ response, as we all know. But the very preoccupation with survival paradoxically can immobilize us, in the way that an eland, seized at the nose by a lioness, yields to a dominant force. Depression is truly a form of pseudo-death—an ambulatory sort of coma. In my experience, ameliorative drugs such as Paxil and Prozac don’t do much more than maintain the most minimal of functioning, at a cost of any exuberance, sexuality or joy.

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Written by admin at Learning

Tagged with: depression justice

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