Die Freiheit des Alters: Ein vorsichtig optimistischer Kartierungsversuch

ISBN-13: 9781512213553 / Niemiecki / Miękka / 2015 / 212 str.

Helmut Schreier

Opis

This essay deals with new issues of the ancient business of getting old. The author draws both from books and from biographical experience. Topics include these cahallenges: - Medical progress makes us live longer, sometimes against the sufferers own wishes: What procedures are provided to navigate these issues at the present time? - Increasing longevity gives us the chance for continued intimacy and love, and the development of new forms of sexual gratification. What are these? - To deal with loneliness, we may accept nature's invitation for companionship, at the same time cultivating a changing community of friends. How do we stay away from becoming ever more isolated? - There is a way to stay forever young, even with the destruction of our bodies by old age. How do we manage to participate in social life while our own group of people is getting smaller and smaller? - In the end, we might find the distance to counterbalance engagement with our selves that philosophers call "Gelassenheit." Montaigne, in his Lukrecian essays, may guide us towards the kind of wisdom that accepts the idea of a life lived completely within this world. How can we manage to keep desparation at bay?