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If Theodore Roszak is correct, we may all have an additional 30 to 50 years of life we weren't expecting to live! Roszak, author of America the Wise, The Making of the Counter-Culture, and Voice of the Earth and founder of the Ecopsychology Institute, is predicting a revolution-one which he says will call us all into new values and activities.

Roszak was one of the keynote speakers at College of the Redwoods' week-long symposium in August, Art and Nature-the Heart of the Matter, which explored the connectedness between art, nature and the human spirit. Roszak spoke during the midweek program which was free to anyone over age 60.

"The modern world is now aging beyond the values that created it," Roszak said. "But we haven't registered this point yet. The greatest change that is taking place in the world around us is the longevity revolution. Arnold Toynbee in 1887 first named the industrial revolution. I now say that we are standing in the middle of a longevity revolution!"

The value he challenged was the industrial revolution itself- "the early industrial cities were killing fields," he said. "No clean water, life expectancy of 17. People would have lived longer if they had stayed in the country." But because industrial cities killed so many people so fast, he said, they also gave rise to the very schools of study that have increased our current life expectancy close to age 80-public health, nutrition and medical science.

"Today we have new forms of medicine that sound like science fiction-biotechnology now has a solid thesis for how and where we age, and serious scientists are talking about modifying and reversing the aging process. They talk of life expectancy of 200 years or more! There is no question that within another generation, life expectancy will easily be 100 years."

Elders Will Set the Agenda

Roszak said that something else is happening simultaneously-national birth rates are falling. "Among 70 nations, their growth rate is at or near zero growth. By the year 2050, for every child under age 4, there will be 3.3 elders over age 60. Today that ratio is 1:1.

"It is the destiny of industrial societies to age," he continued. "One medical article I read recently was called 'The Duty to Die,' and it recommended that people voluntarily die at age 75. Well, nobody is going to sign up for that!"

In the long run, he added, older people will have things their way-greater numbers mean winning elections. And women dominate the older populations-the dominant political force will be the women's agenda, and they will vote for sensible health care and family issues.

Roszak predicted that within the next ten years the most explosive issue will be the issue of caregiving. "Nothing has prepared our culture for adults to give up 20 years of their lives to care for aging parents. I predict that in the 21st century, caregiving will become the most honored and widespread skill and talent in our society."

About the costs of caregiving and health care, Roszak responded with a robust "so what! At one point in our society we lavished money and attention on everything related to automobiles. In the future we will lavish our attention and money on everything related to health care. We have money to pay for health care. Medicare costs $200 billion a year, but people spend $630 billion a year on gambling!

"We will realize that this is our economy. People will make fortunes in health care. People will get paychecks from health care. That's where we are headed, and when we get there, we will feel this is the best place we have ever been. We'll have an NLE index, the Natural Life Expectancy index, which will become the measure of our society-when it goes up, we will all be glad."

Crisis = Opportunity

Roszak said that many people will experience a medical crisis as they age, and that it can be a transformational experience and the advent of wisdom. "No one smoothly goes into aging. If you go through a medical crisis and are brought back to life with very good medicine, you have a magnificent opportunity to observe it as a rite of passage.

"If that experience doesn't change you, nothing will. Once you get through it, you come back transformed in a very simple way-you will ask, 'what does my life mean to me?' And what you'll come up with will be family, friendship, peace, quiet-and the natural environment. Knowing you are here and alive."

Some organizations represented at the Art and Nature Conference

* Theodore Roszak, Ecopsychology Institute, California State University, Hayward, History Dept., 25800 Carlos Bee Blvd., Hayward, CA 94542-3045.

* Matthew Fox, University of Creation Spirituality, web site: www.creationspirituality.com.

* Chungliang Al Huang, Living Tao Foundation. Books: Mentoring, The Tao of Giving and Receiving Wisdom, HarperCollins. Beginners Tai Ji, Celestial Arts.

* Young Imaginations, multicultural music and dance classes for school children; 415-472-7338. Web site: www.youngimaginations.org

One-time article Copyright 1999 by Humboldt Senior Resource Center.