Head Games

I rant therefore I am…Bloggers Anonymous

  
           BOOMERRANTZ in Print

“Pat’s Boomerrantz” is now appearing in Silver and Gold magazine. My first column Arriving Naked is in the new spring issue. It can be viewed online by clicking on the magazine cover to the left…page 38. It’s all about, “Is there freedom after 55?” You’ll need to zoom in to read the text.

 

So with that news out of the way,
I have a few more things to say,
About this ‘Freedom 55’,
And all that mumbo-jumbo jive…

Hard-wired: Moving out of our fifties into the Scary World of Aging is about dealing with change and shifting gears with as much grace as we can muster. And nothing’s easy, because that’s life. In today’s troubled world, these worn out freedom 55 ideas about retirement have had their day. But like a manchurian candidate, we’re well programmed and continue to recite the marketing mantra.

All sizzle: So what’s it all about – our obsession with this freedom by 55 thing? This thing that we measure ourselves by? This thing we use to determine our success and failure? It’s simply a clever marketing slogan dreamed up in a corporate boardroom to make lots of money! Marketing is all about head games. It’s about re-wiring our brains, so our hearts and wallets will follow…like lemmings to the investment pool.

Clean sweep: So let’s keep it real people. Life isn’t a TV commercial. It’s time to stop the race toward this artificially inseminated perception of middle age. It’s time to pop the freedom 55 myth like a nasty zit. It’s time to sweep all these worn out notions into the dusty archives – along with moldy marketing slogans and other antiquated words like foolscap, hearken and slacks.

Enough said: Freedom is where it’s always been; right here, right now, everyday for those of us fortunate enough to live in a free world. So that being said…let’s get on with it.

So all these rantz inside my pantz,
Are music for my freedom dance,
Sometimes I need to shake it out,
That’s what this blog is all about!

Pat Skene