The Existential Dimension to Aging.

In their recent book Aging Thoughtfully: Conversations about Retirement, Romance, Wrinkles, and Regret (2017), Martha C. Nussbaum and Saul Levmore consider their subject from two different personal and professional perspectives (philosophy and law, respectively) through the lenses of eight different topics: domination and control; forced retirement; friendship; the human body as it ages, primarily in aesthetic terms; backward-looking emotions; love in the later stages of life; wealth inequities among those who are older; and legacies. Yet they overlook other parts of the aging process that can be approached "thoughtfully," most importantly what I have termed the existential parts of aging, such as senescence; the "medicalization" of life; the issue of where, how, and with whom one will live in one's later years; and the family dynamics that assist in and impinge on the aging process. I explore these existential dimensions through several other writings on aging, as well as through my own experience.