Creative Aging - Ari Seth Cohen

 
At 61 years of age, I admit like many people, I think about  my mortality, but just as importantly, I also think about my creative quality of life. In a society where agism is common, older individuals become acutely aware of a culture that seems to define itself by youth, perfection, and quantity over quality.

 The messages especially to women, is to be thinner, taller, richer, smarter, beautiful and all the other superficial trappings. There were only a few exceptions in my life I can recall, when I'd wished for a happier life.
I wanted to fill a spiritual void with material possessions that I thought would substitute for happiness. As I got older what became most important, was pursuing quality of life, and becoming responsible for my own happiness.

I have an older friend who is 87 years old, she is more youthful, active, creative and happy, then many individuals many years younger, in spite of her difficulties and losses.

 Being youthful is all in the attitude. I have seen this over and over, even within my own family.
 Photographer and blogger, Ari Seth Cohen's has produced a documentary Advanced Style,  and it is a testament to how style has nothing to with being young chronologically, but has everything to do with having a youthful attitude, and can make for a creative, and positive quality of life. Today Ari Seth Cohen 's was interviewed this morning on CBC about his documentary and had lots to say about his own attitude toward creative aging.

When it comes to the way we look, and how we feel, we don't have to have a lot of money in order to look stylish, or to be happy; nor do we have to let our age hamper a sense creative style.

 I vividly remember rummaging through second hand stores with my mother, when I was little girl growing up in Toronto. We would find many stylish treasures to wear, and I became a kind of 'second hand Rose' and it became a way of life for me, and I loved it, because it inspired me to express my creative style.
Inspiration has no age limit!