How We'll Age by Louise Aronson, M.D.

How We'll Age is a sidebar as part of the article Live Wrong And Prosper, a piece about the future of families in the July/August 2020 issue of Wired magazine.

In the main article, Laurie Penny offers: "Many of us are failing to build the secure, stable households we were taught to desire. Not only is that OK, it's the future of families"

Louise Aronson, M.D., author of "Elderhood," and a geriatrician comments further in this sidebar. She emphasizes the variety of experiences among the elderly which are impacted by income, ethnicity, etc.

"Even before the pandemic, we'd done a lot to strip older lives of purpose and meaning." I would suggest this is not done actively, but as a result of negligence.

Nursing homes are much in the news due to the pandemic, but Aronson notes 93% of "older people do not live in facilities." For-profit owners account for 70% of nursing homes, which have a strong lobbying effort. Penalties for not abiding by regulations are small, and staff are generally underpaid. Add to this the prospect of the workers contracting Covid-19, which makes the job even less desirable.

Aronson suggests there may be creative solutions such as having the elderly "tutor children or immigrants," but this needn't be the only purpose that they should be given, In fact, it is preferable that each senior person develop a plan to actualize their own purpose well before they become less physically able. This approach has led me to create the Eudaimonia Project, meant to make known the need for citizens to find a purposeful pursuit that will carry them into elderhood.

Amazon Kindle eBooks: purchasing with a gift card

Sporadically I receive a gift card for participating in a survey, and recently I decided to purchased a Kindle eBook with this card. Once I was at the book's Web page on Amazon.com, I was only given the option of using the "Buy now with 1-Click©" button." This would apply this purchase to my credit card listed as my default payment option. I didn't want to do this.

I had Amazon help call me, and after 40 minutes with a courteous and kind rep, I had to end the call without resolution. But I did receive a very sincere email explaining a work around:

In this case, As you would use Visa Gift Cards to purchase Kindle books, What I suggest is, Whenever you get a Visa Gift Card, Don't add it to your Amazon account, But convert that Visa Gift Card into Amazon Gift Card balance by reloading your Amazon Gift Card here: https://www.amazon.com/asv/reload/order?_encoding=UTF8&ref_=asv_yab_reload_your_balance . Once money is reloaded from your Visa Gift Card to Amazon Gift Card, You can use the 1-Click to purchase your Kindle book and 1-Click will use the Gift Card balance. By this, you do not have to switch the default payment methods in 1-Click settings.

I've completely made the transition to buying mostly eBooks for several reasons: ability to highlight & annotate, not having the bulk and weight of paper books, etc. If I can't find a Kindle version of a book, I immediately check if a used copy is available.