Old people

The elderly in Japan take action about the nuclear incident.

It's rarely mentioned in headlines how old, aged citizens are contributing more and more to society as time passes....wait, it's America, the old either stay at home all day, play bingo, or get thrown into senior centers. On rare occasion they do something good/great, but not extraordinary.


Are old people hardly noticed because they don't do much, or because society has obscured their image?

Stories of these extraordinary citizens would be nice.​

 

Another reason why I think Japans a better place.

 

Old people are like kids. They cause more troubles than good.
What I mean?
Well, we all know that as a kid you don't have that sence of the right and the wrong, the good and the bad, the allowed and the prohibited, simply because you still learn the world around you. The old people on the other hand, they know everything because of the life they lived but their body -physically- dies and they lose it sometimes or somehow. I see it at the hospital on my shifts: Old people try to show that they still can do stuff but at the end their body betrades them.

We all will get old sometime and we all will start to become senceless in our actions. We will be the weight of the society because we won't be so useful as before. The sad thing is that we will not be like kids, our faults won't be tolerated just because we will learn the life , the world around us again but as old this time.

I believe that old people should be active part of our society, They are the source of knowledge, the living database of memories.

 

Problem was, the internet was born.

 

These Japanese old folks have shown otherwise though.

 

Japan is one century in front of the rest world

 

In almost every way.

 

In one century we'll go boom? D:

 

*Inset Satirical Comment Here*

 

Can't compare America to Japan honestly, I live in California and I have to say that America have got to be the worst place to live.
1. Kids/Teens in this generation are the most disrespectful generation ever, back in the days you would never hear a student talk and use foul language against a adult/teacher/elderly.
2. America is the worst kind of influence to the world with our shitty lame music talking about drugs, boner and having sex, our fashion is pretty horrible too.
3. Sure we may have nice houses with some nice Plasma T.V ect, but that doesn't mean it's a nice place to live in, and I live in a pretty nice neighborhood but I still see gangs, and violence around my area, a SUV got stolen just yesterday, I happen to be driving to the hospital for my mom daily check up and seem to pass by the cops looking for the suspect.
4. In Japan, the respect there is incredible, sure maybe there are a little rebel here and there, but rules in Japan is strict, and teens in Japan aims are to get into Tokyo University, some even take times to take after class studies in order to achieve the dream, the pressure is incredible in Japan cause the amount of teens aiming to get into Tokyo University is high.

Also Japan is a lot more cleaner then U.S.

 

You live in California, that's why. Let's face it, California is the scummiest state in the US (honestly...).

Yes pop music only talks about sex and drugs, but that's found EVERYWHERE. Canada is also a major contributor to that.

The standard of living is high in America, but so is the lack of education. I agree that violence is hugely prevalent as is alcohol and drug usage among teens. I live in Chicago, which is also a huge part of this issue, but I would much rather live in Chicago than Asia. Japan has a whole ton of problems much worse than America besides the recent tsunami.

I live in an area in America where people are hard working and extremely intelligent. The amount of children who use drugs at my school is EXTREMELY low compared to other schools. Alcohol use is the same. In fact, my school works extremely hard at charity, we raised over 200k for Japan, and we raised 100k for autism, and around 78k for teachers in need. You can't judge ALL of America based on where you live (once again...California...), there are great places to live in America where not everyone is some stoner drunk ass who has no respect for anything and only cares about shallow things like sex.

 

There are hard working teachers here fighting and protesting the budget-cut in our school, and many of the teachers are getting a pink-slip for it, and the school my younger brother attend is rumor to lose their counselor next school year because of the budget-cut, they have been fighting and working together to prevent it, we don't even have summer school anymore, and they lower school days, but as you mention I was only mentioning the bad things about U.S, but there are good things and places in U.S, California is just not one of them, but it's not like everyone here are lazy bums though.

They are also gathering support from parents to help them stop the budget-cut on education.

 

True, budget cuts across the country, and yet my schools still paying teachers who do absolutely nothing 6 figure salaries -.-.

It sucks that you have to deal with that. I believe in philanthropy, and no matter how much money I earn in my lifetime, I will always give back to the community as a large. I remember growing up as a child in downtown Chicago, and it influenced me a lot. All big cities have issues, and California in my mind is one hell of a mess, but things can be fixed. First and foremost, get that idiot Obama out of the White House.

I definitely still think that the US is better than Japan overall. The US has tons of things to resolve, and its definitely on its way out, and education is the foundation that needs to be fixed. Rather than trying to legalize drugs -.-, suffocate the trade, get it out of schools, make penalties for underage drinking and drug use muuch higher, and work on fixing colleges to stop being such money suckers.

Then deal with what I like to call is an "education inflation" where the degree is worth more than the knowledge, and know normal college degrees are almost useless. You need grad school. It's all a huge greedy industry. I could go on so many rants on why its useless. But its the youth that need the most work, and they're the ones just failing the country. Or well, the country is failing them so they can fail the country down the line.

Either way, I still think US is better than Japan. We also need to emphasize civic education. The political apathy nowadays is astounding... -.-

 

At least your state wasn't headed by a movie superstar.

 

I never voted for Obama anyways I honestly think he won was because people wanted to give him a chance and people was surprised that a Black/Muslim is a candidate for the election, mostly the African American/Blacks they also advertise people to vote for him from music, shirts, hat/beanies, shoes.

Also it would be a extremely slow process to fix the things in U.S but it's not impossible take time and a better leader, if we get lucky and we elected a good president that is willingly to give his/her time and money to fix the problems in U.S, I would probably sleep smiling knowing that things are about to change for the better good.

 

I think people are starting to realize they just elected Obama because of a perverse form of affirmative action. But meh, w/e. IMO, the youth is the first thing that needs to be fixed. Stop the filth ;o. The wonders we could achieve if even half the children in America were half the kind of people that the people at my school are .

 

(Warning: 100% opinions that are not facts incoming. Although I will pepper facts and realities into it, I don't want to be flamed.)

Disclaimer: Not all people fall under the stereotype, and I am in no way bashing anyone in particular.

Generally America has a horrible sense of morals, and I'm not just speaking of the USA... Canada is ****ing horribad too. I can't walk two steps without coming across another guy or girl who is smoking a home-grown doobie (for a lack of better words), or how many people come running into the hospital after overdosing.

There is far too many faults in society, and all of them correlate to eachother. In return, this may be a broad image of it, but this is the factual reality of our society we live in. Everything interacts with eachother, no matter how "seemingly irrelevant it is".

#1: We place far FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR too much value on money.

What is money? A man-made invention. It is the one item that people lie, cheat, steal, kill, slave and eventually get some and then die. We all dream of living in some obsurd mansion with butlers and gold doorhandles with a freaking gigazmic pool in the house and another one outside... having a garage full of the most expensive and best-engineered cars/trucks/etc, having the best trophy-wife.

These things are, at best, overrated and retarded.

-Who needs a house that big? I'm sorry, I see something reasonable as being far much-more worth my time and money. Not to mention useful. The beautiful comment "Less is more" comes into play in this instance, big time.

-Who needs excessive premium amounts of cars? That is retarded, and better known as hoarding (which is an "illness" parsay). Get rid of the crap you don't drive and move on with your life. It isn't "cool" when you drive a car for a while then switch over to this one which you aren't used too (anyone that drives knows what I mean, they "feel" different), and then tomorrow the next one... and then the day after tomorrow? You wind up in the hospital with a spinal injury because you had so many cars and were "cool". Now I've seen "cool" neckbraces, but I personally am a bit of a cream-puff when I see little kids come in and sign their name on it and draw rainbows and hearts on it afterwards.

-Etc.

So in all reality, human-kind may be able to cut down the tallest trees, climb the tallest mountains, build bridges across raging rivers and open-water, forge towering pillars of metal from Mother-Earth that rend the sky itself, hold the entire worlds species in "Zoo's" to show our weak-young as we starve theirs and inject them with drugs to abort their own kind....

... But, we are enslaved. Not by a supreme living being, not by an awesome act of nature, not by any laws of this world that bind us... we are enslaved by pieces of paper and numbers. When you look at it that way, isn't our society more pitiful than the McDonalds hamburger that is grabbed by the over-weight man suffering from diabetes comorbid heart arrythmia, placed into his mouth, masticated and then swallowed, leading to being digested by his body, and then forced out of his ass in a brown pile?

I do think so.

#2: Society has grown too fast in my opinion. And in other people's as well.

We have technology that allows us to instantly message others across the world, the ability to horde all of our "friends" onto facebook and myspace before that. We have people constantly glued onto the next thing to occur, as if our instincts have been turned against us to make us the fool. Some people even have panic attacks when waiting for a text-message, that is how extreme it has gotten.

With that, we have gained a beautiful mentality... that especially relates to this topic.

What is that? It is simply we use what we will and all else is garbage to be thrown away. While I am the first to say hoarding isn't a good thing, our mentality to throw away lives without a whim is a mockery of ourselves.



#3: Too much emphasis is placed upon looks.

Society has also become a horrendously dispicable shallow piece of trash, and I mean that in the most loving way possible. If you have good looks people immediately characterize you as being "smarter", "stronger", "more reliable", "loving", "pure". And if you are ugly? The opposite, apparantly phrenology is something people naturally have obtained, but lack the proper medical education to use it.

Example: Acromegaly, the SYMPTOM in which can be related to many things (Example, Anterior Pituitary tumor, releases excess human growth hormone in adult years (after epipiseal plates have closed due to estrogen/testosterone intervention)... this widens the jawline, increases the size of the hands and feet and essentially these people "get bigger" without "getting taller".

However, before you see someone with that description have you performed a MRI? A PET scan is another good one, inject the proper tracer chemical (example: deoxyglucose) and have the tumor suck it up and analyze the amount of radioactive tracer is present? Did you get a enlarged anterior pituitary signal?

No?

Well then, (we'll pretend that is the only diagnosis that could be related to that symptom) I guess it isn't that... hmm.

Tl;Dr of that paragraph above: Phrenology is something to be taken with a ****ton of salt at best.


Now lets get into the other fact, if we truly have "evolved" then it is a fact that our brains had low cognitive power during our earlier stages (whether or not this is true/false is an ENTIERLY different topic in itself.), meaning we'd need physical triggers to activate our "sensors" to say "LETS MATE".

So, just like a silk-worm releases "bombykol" (a pheremone), we required the physical trigger of attraction based upon looks (other factors likely as well, however, pheremones have been shown to work well.... for PIGS (not humans, no... I really mean not humans)).

This emphasis on apperance and gender (requirement of the opposite reproduction tool to be together, supposedly) has caused our society to praise and worship people who appear to look good. We actually have an entire section of our brain dedicated to the decomposition of faces and reassembly of their perception called the "Fusiform Facial Gyrus", near the bottom of the brain . This has caused these "angels" to become lazy, apathetic, judgemental and critical. (Such as these so called amazing models, overhyped and overconfident hags that will grow old and wrinkled and attempt to use the neurotoxin botox to kill off their neurons in their face. Yet still be just as dumb and soulless of a sack of hammers as they were before.)

This has also related to the removal of the MAJORITY of the populations confidence. 50 years ago a woman having some meat on her bones was sexy, and now we think that this is sexy:



I'd have taken 50 years ago much over this. At least then they were healthy and I wouldn't have to worry about breaking their hips during a one-night-stand (men included).

And this has, also, caused people to "give up" on themselves and their self-confidence and throw in the white-towel. Causing many people to say "screw it" and quit excersizing, quit their job, fall into depression which has a whole wack of things even in the bare-bones DSM 4 (I'm so excited for DSM 5!).

Now more to elderly people (honing in on it), they have lived long lives and for whatever reason (Geneticists imagine that it is the degregation of the "Telomere" on their strands of DNA which gets shorter upon replication, and the shorter it gets the less likely it is to prevent DNA damage and then... tada... ) age has hit them, and have gained "wise-old wrinkles" upon other things. Society DOES place a huge amount of emphasis upon apperance and likewise these people IMMEDIATELY are almost a "turn off" for a lot of the population. Elderly to todays society means "senile", "grumpy", "needy", etc. And the fact of the matter couldn't possibly get further from the truth. Looks, in this case, scrutinize and discriminate against a large population of people; and its actually god damn lame lolz.

Why do I say its lame? I've met many a old person (60-70+) that have actually lost their hair previously, receeding hair line, wrinkles, etc... and they have gone for full remakes including:

-Hair transplant.
-Hair color alteration products (hair dye, too common too see).
-Botox, mentioned earlier in this response. It is a neurotoxin that prevents the release of vesicles holding neurotransmitters. Wrinkles are essentially overstimulated muscle zones. Inhibit the release of the neurotransmitter (often called an "antagonist"), inhibit the contraction of the muscle, wrinkle-be-gone.
-Skin therapy.
-Plastic surgery.
-Voice, however, is unchangeable at this point in time really.

Hilarious thing is, how they actually do come out of this (assuming they did go to a professional that did give 2 shits about doing their job right) looking "100% better". They say how their love life has never been better, and how people are assuming they are in their late-20's. They gain a large amount of attention now and I've heard some even get married without the release of age.


So, therefore, isn't it hypocritical to say we are so "intelligent" and "dominant" when we rely on old-age evolutionary traits? That will lead into my next point


#4:

EVERYONE. LIES.

Period.

Whether this is society to blame, or our own personal greed, or perhaps a "white-lie" to protect a friend/aquantance/family member.... everyone lies.

Society: We implement huge pressure and repremand those who do poorly with the fullest extent of our power within the law. Likewise, people oftentimes find it easier to lie and manipulate than to be honest. In this case we have subconciously (or conciously) conditioned people to avoid telling the truth and reinforced lying.

For our own gain: "Sure I'll help you with your groceries!" -runs off with them-. Once again this is a lie for self-gain.... relation to society is high.

For someone elses, the "White Lie": Personally, I'd love to say *turns on corny 80's commercial music* "No, a stroke isn't a serious condition at all. Your brain will be fine! I mean you just had your entire left hemisphere undergo necrosis and apoptosis and it is at best a giant white blob on the CT-scan after the hemmorhage... but you'll be great! Better than ever! Now, why are you in that bed? -Opens curtains- It is a bright new day! -The sun has a smiley face and all the flowers are dancing and laughing and there is a group of kids playing and holding eachothers hands in a circle outside" "By golley Doc! I can speak again!" "Of course you can! It's all better!" -I grab the patients hand and we skip out of the room and through the hospital which is full of rainbows, sugarplumbs and faithfully ambitious and loving nurses ACTUALLY TAKING CARE OF THE PATIENTS- "

No.

I'd love it if it were true. But no.

Truth sucks, but lying makes it worse no matter what the situation. Sure it can help one get their OWN ass out of the fire, but covering it up for someone elses sake?

Uhm... Example: You cheated on your BF/GF, you know they'd break up with you. So you plan to tell a white-lie that you "were studying very hard for the midterm last night".

#1: If you were studying for the midterm last night, you are a shitty student. Cramming retains information so well in the brain, it just DISSAPEARS after a few ... hours? I'll be kind and say days.

#2: You're covering your own ass, they have every right to know.

#3: You weren't someone worth dating in the first place, telling them a "White-Lie" wouldn't help THEM. It would be selfish (and actually hinder you GREATLY later-on). Therefore, tell them, because you don't deserve nobody.




#5: Healtttthhhhhhhhhhhh

So very integral to this topic that it is crazy. Older people suffer from many potential disorders or distresses, these range from:
-Brain tumors
-Alzheimers, Parkinsons, Huntingtons, Etc. (P.S., these are NOT normal parts of aging. Anyone that says "Alzheimers is a normal part of aging" is full of poo-poo's.)
-Senile
-Heart difficulties
-Increased instance of falling (can be related to presbyopia, degredation of the cerebellum, poor muscle tone, bresbycusis, altered blood-pressure, lack of energy (cushings, diabetes), ETC)

So yes... there are a lot of disorders that old people can suffer from.


Now SOCIETY... society has a lot of gall.

Even "Perfect Little Pre-Med Students", the majority of which have NO IDEA what they are even speaking of.

Society is actually generally apathetic towards helping people. Let alone holding open a door, oh unless they are on a date-to-impress, then that door is held WIDEEEEE open. I've been to the USA and have actually had the door closed right on my face 5-6 times. So in terms of society's general outlook on helping people? Moot at best.

Society's attempt to care about other people and actually invest time towards understanding them? EVEN LESS.

Does one even know the figures of how many people are hospitalized, and how FEW actually get even a single visitor for a single visit? At best, it is heartbreaking. Now I'll go and mention the falls I said above... one of the MAIN reasons elderly people are emitted into the hospital.

Falling:

Potential hazards:
-Spinal Cord injury (Snap above C5, and you risk being unable to breathe and will die, snap somewhere around the thoracic area and they lose the ability to walk at all, Brown-Sequard syndrome is another interesting phenomenon which has heat and pain loss on one side and movement lost on the other).
-Contusion, Consussion, Cerebral Edema, Mangling of
-Broken bones (especially hips. Don't forget at an older age it is more difficult to repair tissues, let alone bone with the osteocytes, osteoclasts and osteoblasts mediating the breakdown and reformation of bone. That is even ignoring when they have co-morbid problems such as osteoporosis, etc.)
-MANY.

Did you know that if nursing staff actually asks three very simple questions that fall incidence is reduced by 30%? That may not sound like much, but that 30% STACKS. ;p

1. How are you feeling today?
2. Is there anything you need from the table beside you? (And ensuring they have the nurse-alarm rinnger thing near them).
3. Do you need to go to the toilet?

Amazing, huh. Now if only we had volunteers get in there, their family and friends, etc... we could most likely reduce that even further. That 30% is a cynical outlook on it.

Now, if only society cared, wouldn't stereotypes be ridden? As said before, disorders are generally what make society biased against elderly people.


What can we do to help?:

#1: Spend some time with them, ask if you can help them with anything. You'd be surprised what some of them need to do (dig holes (no, not for themselves LOL), hammer in fence boards, climb a ladder to remove the christmas lights from this winter, etc).

#2: Ensure they take the proper nutrition. Nutrition goes a LONG way. This includes avoiding things that are undesireable... like McDonalds, Burger King, which can cause build-up of artherosclerotic plaque, leading to heart-issues, strokes, ischemic damage to legs (Like what Dr. House had from "House"... that T.V. Show!). Reduction of alcohol, if not COMPLETE removal... perfuse damage throughout the body is best avoided, liver failure is probably the #1 thing people think of... but they don't think of Korkasoff's syndrome (for example) in which the alcohol prevented the uptake of thiamine from the diet (which is required!) and thus caused them to suffer SUBSTANTIAL memory loss... perhaps this is a major linkage to why "Grandpa" can't remember your name anymore. Luckily this is treatable by removal of alcohol (Ethanol, a organic compound...) and high doses of Thiamene usually taken orally.

#3: Ensure all medication is being taken PROPERLY. (Overdosing is a risk. Also taking a baby aspirin is risky as well since it is true that 80% of all strokes ARE ischemic (formed from a thromus embolus, a clot) and that baby aspirin acts as an anticoagulant... however 20% of them are hemmorhagic, and losing the ability for the blood to clot properly is DEVASTATING in a hemmorhage.)

Many other things, things I find obvious.

It isn't their fault they are "older" and more susceptable to illnesses, infections, etc. However, we are going to be put into their place far-too-soon-already! And I don't know about you, but I'd rather society didn't lock me up into a generally apathetic seniors home to die.




Summary:

So all in all society has shifted its core-social-values away from family, respect, honesty and integrity to become posessed by the man-made object called money, entranced by the world of fashion and those who we foolishly think are "happy" in their 10million dollar rat-cages, places a large surplus onto their own needs and happily tosses away the rights and freedoms and values of others... hell, no, they actually just pretty much throw the entire person into the garbage next to the empty-popcan and McDonalds wrapper.

It is no surprise that those who need us the most, those who were the foundation to this very society, are being abused if not ignored. People are avid and verocious in their attempt to get at a dying rich-man who they pray to their bank-account will give them money in his will... and those who they can't profit from? They merely find them to be a disgusting waste of space and taxdollars. "Survival of the fittest" is hardly a term I find suitable in the first place, but even if I take that sociopathic definition of the phrase, their survival and life has, if nothing more, made them more fit to be served by you who isn't even at their half-life; served by their accomplishments and revolution and forging of this society.

 

If it was like I would be a happy man, because I don't want to have my kids expose to violence and drugs, I want to keep them far away from things that would harm their future, and school have become a dangerous place probably not in other areas but here a teen was stabbed in a school fight, it was on the news, and not to mention teens are also bringing in weapons to school, and I don't want my kids going to a school that is not safe, and in California there are a lot of school that can be label as a bad school, the school itself is not bad but the children attending the school is what makes it bad, it's what goes in their young heads that concern me.

 

Holy shit yo, this ain't a college writing class.

 

If only they wanted papers that short