Friends whose judgment I normally respect often remind me that I seem to take on challenges too big for any mere mortal.
They pelt me with insinuations like: "You're trying to boil the ocean" or "C'mon, Charlton Heston, get down off the mountain.
" My answer to such slander is to remind critics that I'm a self-styled visionary, and a "grit-in-the-oyster" guy who hunts for those adroit kinds of oysters who have a knack for fashioning pearls.
My current aim is to recruit their talents and wisdom to join a battle to get beyond one of the ugliest, most deeply ingrained biases of our post-World War II generations.
It's called "ageism.
" By that I don't mean just age discrimination, but all of the age-graded ways by which we decide what people can or cannot do.
This is a pitiful product of rickety conventions and gross misjudgment that could rob our society of a boundless gift of human ingenuity and vitality at a time when we need it most.
To rid ourselves of this huge handicap, we must stir the imagination and hone the talents of all ages so they can together find, design, and put into play systems and means that will set a new pace for human progress.
Now, this may seem like a ploy for "boiling the ocean.
" Instead, it's meant as a timely call to explore, design, invest in, and build a more secure, abundant, and compassionate society.
We've already wasted so much of ourselves squabbling about the feckless conduct of the financial and investment communities, and the blundering of no longer viable automotive giants now given to begging for government bailouts.
Isn't it time we paid major mind to the earth-shaking opportunities ahead that we've so far ignored?Except for a few alert luminaries, the industrialized world has given sparse attention to the most significant legacy from the Twentieth Century.
Here's the picture.
Thanks to a newfound gift of longevity, you and I now own a unique, four-generation opportunity at life.
It awards a clear majority of those who've made it into the 21st Century with 25 to 30 years of added human vitality and potential.
Our challenge is to learn to use them well.
My answer is to introduce a fresh attitude of expectation and a positive doctrine to live by as we explore how to make the most of an extended life experience.
I call my strategy "Perpetual Discovery.
" This search is born as an open forum in which to raise, question, and debate the pressing issues and mystifying choices required to keep alive America's ambition to be the most resourceful, abundant, and compassionate society on our planet.
My opening gambit is to awaken the curiosity and interest of every age in a lively, multigenerational conversation--written and spoken--under these headings: oA New Doctrine on Aging oHealth and Well Being oRealities of a New Working Age oLearning: A Vital, Renewable Resource oCivic Enterprise as the Key to Socioeconomic Progress oThe Social Restraints of Religion and Culture.