Zoomers Need To Stop And Think
May 18, 2008
Dow Marmur - http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/426761

Old age is being rebranded. Baby boomers – women and men born soon after World War II and now reaching retirement age – are not to be described as old or seniors, or even as "55 and better," but as zoomers – "boomers with zip."

The term, apparently invented in the United States, has been taken up in Canada by Moses Znaimer, the media entrepreneur, now himself a zoomer.

According to Age Venture, a U.S. online magazine dedicated to "youth'n up your life," a zoomer knows the difference between inevitable and reversible aging, performs daily exercise such as aerobics, eats carefully, has a social support system, a passion "for living life to the fullest" and has put away enough money before retiring. This last point identifies the new retirees, in their vain belief in "reversible aging," as market fodder. Znaimer is reported to have acquired a financial interest in a company promoting zoomer-like activities. He is acting on the fact that zoomers have more money to spend than the previous generation.

In a similar vein, a play currently on stage in Toronto that, according to its author, seeks to celebrate women of all ages by showing that "beauty comes from life's accumulated experiences" is being sponsored by a soap company. Though our culture regards old age as something to hide, normative Judaism, like other ancient traditions, respects and even venerates it. To be an elder, a term still retained by many churches, is to be a potential teacher and leader. To act one's age rather than try to "reverse" it is a way to aspire to a higher status and greater authority.

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), the founder of analytical psychology, taught that the first half of one's life should be devoted to reaching out into the world, to doing; later years should be about reaching into oneself, about being. Youth reflects the opportunities and challenges offered by modern technology, old age is best understood in terms of perennial theology. To the knowledge acquired in earlier years can now be added wisdom that comes with experience, reflection and humility before God.

Retirement thus becomes an opportunity to concentrate on one's inner spiritual life in the hope that material needs have been provided for by a combination of thrift in earlier years and protection by the state. Instead of pathetic efforts to appear young, often with the help of "anti-aging" cosmetics and surgery, Jung's approach allows us to live with growing physical limitations while affirming and celebrating life in depth and with purpose.

Studying ancient sources of wisdom and sharing thoughts about what it means to be human is a productive way for retirees to use their leisure time. One of my great joys is to impart whatever insights I have about Jewish teachings to my contemporaries. We don't zoom; we think. Our aim is not to pass exams for professional advancement but to reach deeper into ourselves by learning from each other and from those who came before us. Because leisure is a prerequisite for culture, reflective retirement provides countless opportunities to scale new cultural and spiritual heights.

When money is a condition for being a zoomer, the stress on being rather than having becomes an impediment. Like the pagans of old, the neopagans of today glorify youth and try to hide their age. Instead of learning from the wisdom of the old, our culture is wedded to the latest fad, however trivial.

Rebranded zoomers with buying power may be fitter and run faster than old-fashioned retirees in pursuit of wisdom, but do they get anywhere?

Dow Marmur is rabbi emeritus at Toronto's Holy Blossom Temple. His column appears every other week.

Fighting the mega projects
By Devika Sequeira
Posted on: http://www.GOANET.org

Grassroots resistance to mega housing projects in villages across Goa is redefining the role and the power of the gram sabhas in this tourist destination. Gram sabhas have traditionally been active in Goa. But the spate of protests against the upscale urbanisation of rural Goa that is spreading like a contagion from village to village and gram sabha to gram sabha, is turning the unique sociological phenomenon into a political and legal challenge for the Congress-led government.

In early April, the gram sabha of Carmona in South Goa, resisting the transformation of the small scenic village into an "urban Eldorado for the rich" from outside Goa gave the thumbs down to K Raheja. The realty major's plans to implant an enclave of luxury villas with 93 individual plunge pools into the heart of the village have been frozen by the village panchayat since. Similar upmarket projects are being stonewalled through gram sabhas in the villages of Aldona, Benaulim, Bambolim, Siridao, Chorao to name just a few.

The groundswell of resentment against moneyed speculators and foreigners on the prowl for holiday-home-properties has been mounting in Goa as the local population finds itself increasingly marginalised with the influx of "outsiders" and the northward bound property prices. Goa's population at 13.4 lakh a decade ago (2001 Census) is projected to touch 16.5 lakh by 2011 and 18.05 lakh by 2021, the state's task force on the Regional Plan reveals.

By 2021, Goa's pastoral character, enhanced by its beautiful villages, is set for a dramatic reversal too with impending urbanisation. Around 12.6 lakh of the state's population will by then be living in municipal areas against 5.4 lakh in panchayat zones. Today 9.5 lakh people here live in villages compared to 4 lakh in townships. India's smallest state, all of 3078 sq km, draws besides a floating tourist population of 25 lakh a year. As a state with the lowest birth rate in the country (15.2 in 2006), the fears that the Goan identity will soon be submerged by the changing demographics are not unfounded.

Goa's powerful Catholic Church, historically active in peoples' movements, has thrown its weight behind the new resistance. "The church has always taken up issues where people are being victimised," said Fr Maverick Fernandes of the Council for Social Justice and Peace. The speculative boom, he argues, is eroding the character of Goa's towns and villages, changing their demographic composition and driving property prices beyond the reach of the local people.

As the awakening against the sellout of Goa rallying under the umbrella of Ganv Ghor Rakhonn Manch gains momentum, the movement to scale up resistance through the gram sabhas in Goa appears set for a confrontation with the government. "Projects that have been approved by the authorities cannot be overturned by the gram sabhas,"

Chief Minister Digambar Kamat warned protesters after a well-attended public meeting in South Goa resolved to defy the government on mega projects cleared without a village development plan. Lawyer Cleofato Coutinho agrees. "The gram sabha has no powers to reverse decisions taken by the panchayat," he says, particularly in matters of land and urban planning which are not within its purview.

Like many others here Mr Coutinho backs the "sentiment" behind the resistance to group housing that is changing the face and character of rural Goa. But the battle, he says, would have to be fought on a public platform larger than the gram sabha to compel the government to effect changes in the planning laws.