FootprintsintheWind.com

Each of us is a member of many groups—family, clubs, associations, religious bodies, political parties, kaffeeklatsches. Some have looser, weaker ties than others. All influence and are influenced by us. Agree? Our wholeness then is a complex weave of all these and what we make of them. We are whole and yet integral parts of many wholes, and they in turn parts of something even larger. Complex synergy is our nature and we are at least as much that as egos.

:- Doug.

Is wholeness relationship?

:- Doug.

See the patterns of humanity and so discern its direction. Provide early alerts.

:- Doug.

Play opens us.

:- Doug.

Quantum play—how might we play with the grandchildren who will be elders 300 years from now? Is it really not possible? Really only one directional?

:- Doug.

Tension can be lived among other ways in fighting others, in going to sleep, in playfulness. Playfulness gets us further?

:- Doug.

We go into unknown territory. No, we don’t know everything. Knowing this makes us wise—a vulnerable kind of wise.

:- Doug.

Mischievousness and impishness are subspecies of playfulness.

:- Doug.

If you believe we owe something big to the grandchildren, come help us figure out how bigger.

:- Doug.

Playfulness is the quantum leap across the generations. So we develop our playfulness for the benefit of the grandchildren.

:- Doug.

You are simultaneously complete and part of a larger whole leading to the grandchildren and beyond. Tension.

:- Doug.

We are the connective tissue of the generations. Janus-faced, we are pulled to the way things need to be—together—and away to the safety of what we want to do—autonomy. We cannot escape nor resolve the tension. Only live it.

:- Doug.

How do playfulness and responsibility fit together? Help us find out.

:- Doug.

Into the inviting, freeing, hugging….

:- Doug.

Take a broader, more playful, approach to the generations.

:- Doug.

Not here to shop for bargains or “experiences,” we are confronted by a generation that wants something of us. This changes our lives. Maybe this change is unpleasant, but it is given us as responsibility and love.

:- Doug.

Wars and culture conflicts are simply human relations run off the rails. If we attend well to our neighbors we live well at peace.

:- Doug.

There is something well beyond the middling years and we owe it to the grandchildren to jump in with both feet.

:- Doug.

There are experiences where you can wear gloves and goggles and contraptions to simulate the losses of aging. Let’s do the reverse.

:- Doug.

Let’s call every person of this generation “elder:” you are presumed wise until proven otherwise.

:- Doug.

This is radical, and I think I need to stress the radical nature. Stop downplaying, making it seem easy and normal. Eldering is not normal.

:- Doug.

Stop being ordinary.

:- Doug.

Human has not yet been fully invented: we need us.

:- Doug.