Monthly Archives: July 2014

Aging and Spirit

Mellowing with Age: Myth or Truth?

As a grow older, I routinely return to questions regarding my personality: “Which personal characteristics are of me and which ones are not?” “Am I becoming the person I would have hoped to have become in my youth?”

“Am I a person I would want to be around?” “Is age mellowing me, or am I just becoming a cranky old man?”

So far, I have discovered that I have developed and refined the characteristics that I have picked up over time. Some are good and express attributes I would fondly wish to see in people close to me. Other qualities are less than desirable and not worthwhile to retain in any fashion, and I consider myself irresponsible when I perpetuate them in the world.

Just as certain stones are conglomerations of multiple minerals, I have picked up and acquired various aspects of personality that I have encountered throughout my life; some thoughtfully and others carelessly. Some I now carry due to my adaptable nature. Others I carry because life has hammered them into weak points of my armor. I have moulded both types into my persona, while time, experience and repeated use have worn them into a shape of my own fashion.

Yet I find myself left with a choice: Shall I become a stone that is smooth, well polished and highly reflective of surrounding sources of light? Or will I be a rough-edged, brittle and dull amalgamation of lesser qualities in need of further purification to reach a higher state of being?

Clearly, we make due with qualities that are presented to us over a lifetime beginning at birth. We carry with us what we choose. Some qualities are fostered consciously, while others we self-integrate with less awareness. We are presented with an endless stream of opportunities to shed what does not serve us and retain what we believe to be of use.
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What I see as essential in my life is to pay close attention to what my responses are as I am ceaselessly tumbled about in the surf of life. As I encounter situations, people and events, I shall work to repeat, reiterate and reflect only the qualities I wish to see in myself to the best of my ability. To attempt to do any less, would diminish who I am and my potential to contribute anything of worth and meaning to the world in which I live.

© Anthony Antoville 2014

Anthony Antoville is COO and geriatric case manager with Champion Advocates LLC in Portland, Oregon. He has been serving the psychosocial needs of seniors since 1991. Anthony is a published author with The Edwin Mellen Press.

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Questioning Aging Answers

Pets: Mirroring Our Care and Our Fear

“Arthritis – How diet, supplements and alternative therapies can ease those aching joints; How to Care for Your ‘Super Senior’; Catching Cancer Early; Chiropractic Care for Your Senior.”

What reader is this table of contents written for?

Apparently, a popular pet magazine has keyed into our Western obsession with wellness and longevity. It appears to be encouraging us to transfer this obsession onto our pets. If it were not for the cover picture and the magazine’s title, I could very well have been looking at a periodical geared for the non-pet owning reader.

Eventually, some of the article titles returned me to the reality of the subject at hand: “Protect Your Dog’s Joints; Cognitive Dysfunction in Cats; Pancreatitis in Dogs and Cats.”

Now, don’t get me wrong. I have loved and cared for animals all of my adult life and have seen these animals as members of my family. I feed my cats the best foods that I can discern from reviewing nutritional content and food sources. When my Shepard-lab mix suffered from hip dysphasia in his mid-teens, I improved his bed, gave him a daily glucosamine chondroitin supplement and even cared for him through bouts of incontinence until he could no longer easily walk.

Clearly, we need to care for the animals that are dependent upon us to thrive and survive, but have we taken our society’s obsession for longevity too far by imposing it onto our family pets?

Is our fear of disease and death causing our pets to live with conditions and undergo therapies and surgeries primarily to make us feel better about ourselves?

Some parents suggest affixing a kids GPS device to the belt loop on the back side of your child’s free sample viagra pants. Many of men feel hesitate on buying viagra from canadian pharmacies from physical pharmacy store. Urology has various branches, such as endourology, where the urologist performs minor surgeries, neurourology, which covers order cialis the nervous system as it secretes lipase, amylase, and protease. Kamagra is also very effective in inhibiting PDE5 enzymes and lead to healthy erection of the penis. generic cialis 20mg In the book, Withrow & MacEwen’s Small Animal Clinical Oncology (Fourth Edition); the authors reveal that cancer in pets is on the rise due to increased longevity in pets. Furthermore, cancer treatments for pets are on the rise due to increased demand from pet owners, who are largely driven by media on the subject. The authors clearly state, “Pet animals with spontaneously developing cancer provide an excellent opportunity to study many aspects of cancer from etiology to treatment.” They further outline fifteen superior opportunities for studying human cancer and treatment through treatment of pets, over laboratory studies of mice and rats.* Therefore we might ask, Who is really benefitting here?

Pets are a primary connection between us and the natural world of animals and other forms of life. How do our societal obsessions affect our relationships with the natural world and to our own natural cycles of life? How far out of control have our fears become?

© Anthony Antoville 2014

Anthony Antoville is COO of Champion Advocates LLC in Portland, Oregon. He has been serving a wide range of elder needs since 1991. Anthony is a published author with The Edwin Mellen Press.

*Introduction: Why Worry About Cancer in Pets? Withrow & MacEwen’s Small Animal Clinical Oncology (Fourth Edition) Edited by: Stephen J. Withrow, DVM, DACVS, DACVIM (Oncology), and David M. Vail, DVM, DACVIM (Oncology)

Animal Wellness Magazine Vol 16 Issue 4

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Future Vision

Aging and the Futurist

I just attended a talk with Intel’s Futurist, Brian David Johnson. Earlier in this week, I had read through a futurist magazine filled with articles extolling child bearing robots and brain downloads and my expectations were low for meaningful content.

I was pleasantly surprised to hear Brian’s view that the future he envisions is about humans, not technology. It is not technology that guides us, but we who should be guiding technology. As we enter an era in which we can manufacture molecular-sized technology and literally anything can become a computer, it is up to us to decide what we stand for and what we stand against.

What stuck me most was this statement Brian made:

How do you change the future?
Change the story that people are telling themselves about the future they will live in.

In that light, what story are we telling ourselves about aging?

Aging is not only in our future, it is happening to all of us and now! If we are allowing the aging story to be shaped by medical technology companies, which of these technologies will enhance our experience of living a human life and which will dehumanize us over time?

Are the advertisements put forward by pharmaceutical corporations helping or warping our understanding of the course of life? Is the aging story told by residential care conglomerates and investment brokerages meaningful and true to what you stand for?

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Be aware of what you stand for and what you stand against, and change the story you are telling yourself as much as you need to.

© Anne Conrad-Antoville 2014

Anne Conrad-Antoville is CEO of Champion Advocates LLC in Portland, Oregon. She has helped hundreds of families with professional geriatric case management services and other supportive services for seniors. Anne is also President of Working Woman Aging Parents.

Intel – Brian David Johnson and the Tomorrow Project

Photo- Damien Hirst, Hoorsenbuhs — The Cathedral Collection – Pill Rosary

 

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Chocolate and Cabernet

Disney’s “Maleficent” is a Tale of Forgiveness

Maleficent, Disney’s recent blockbuster release, reveals an unusual way to express the timeless message of forgiveness to its viewers, young and old alike. The tale of the formerly evil villainess in the classic Sleeping Beauty is provided a much needed backstory in this updated version to explain what has led her to unleash such hatred against the newly born babe, Aurora.

We learn that a great violation has been committed upon Maleficent by Aurora’s soon to be father, Stephan. This would be the mutilation and stealing of her faerie wings through deception and manipulation by Stephan to gain favor and the eventual kingship from the dying human king. A new war ensues between these two worlds and the innocent on both sides are made to suffer. All of this for the sake of the old king’s desire to destroy the faerie realm and plunder its coveted wealth of unimagined riches.

Yet, the innocent Aurora shows Maleficent the path back toward compassion and healing as only a child will. Through the years that lead up to Aurora’s fateful 16th birthday, Maleficent slowly rediscovers her own love of the natural world and a shared awe of wonder as expressed in Aurora.

Eventually, Maleficent strives in vain to reverse her dreaded spell that she had cast upon Aurora, and is left with but one final measure to cure the girl of the forever deathlike sleep. She must travel into the human kingdom, enter King Stephan’s castle and face his knights who are armed with weapons of deadly iron.

Forgiveness is a cornerstone of compassionate aging. Several times and in many ways, this compassionate message is conveyed.

Stephan as a young boy and would-be thief is forgiven by a young Maleficent and her faerie co-beings of his original trespass; the three tiny pixies repeatedly tussle and argue with one another to remain each others faithful companions over the years; Maleficent again forgives Stephan later as a grown man who had abandoned her to pursue his ambition among men, and Aurora forgives Maleficent of casting the doom-filled spell upon her.
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But most dramatically, Maleficent, in the heat of battle and clearly in a position to defeat King Stephan, gives him quarter and is willing to spare his life. It is only Stephan who chooses to cling to a hardened and merciless heart, thus seeking final vengeance.

By the re-vision of this tale, we are shown that forgiveness begins when we strive to rise above an insult, a trespass, a wound, an injustice.

Forgiveness is ultimately realized, when we knowingly attempt to break a painful or disastrous cycle in favor of reaching a new state of awareness within ourselves and in others. This process is one that can occur naturally over time as memories fade, the mind weakens and the ego-driven self slowly diminishes. Or, we can consciously decide which aspects of our lives that we wish to truly cherish and nurture through our remaining years.

© Anthony Antoville 2014

Anthony Antoville, CMC is Care Manager, Certified and COO of Champion Advocates LLC in Portland, Oregon. For more than 20 years, he has professionally served hundreds of families in addressing family relations and other elder issues.

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