Recent Careerwell speakers on creative aging, who presented at the Poetics of Aging Conference, offer their views of aging below:

• Norm Amundson (sexagenarian), "Life is a story with many chapters, the most exciting segments usually come toward the end of the book. Our challenge is to make every moment count and live life to the full."Dick Bolles:
• Dick Bolles (octogenarian), "The traditiional view of aging thinks of it in terms of work: measured by whether work is present or absent. I prefer instead to think of Aging in terms of music: life has four Ages, Stages, or movements, just as a symphony does. So, of course, Aging as music, Aging as poetics, is long overdue for discussion." 
• Sumyyah Bilal (sexagenarian), "Live each day as if it were your last. Do your best by your work, your family, your friends. If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do today?"
• John Gray (quinquagenarian), "How do we learn to listen to our inner elder? By properly learning to cope with stress effectively, then we have access to our inner elder, our inner wisdom, our knowing on how to meet our partner's needs, as well as our own needs."
• John Krumboltz (octogenarian) , "Try it, you might like it. Throughout our whole lives we should be experimenting with ways to increase our happiness and satisfaction."

Poetics of Aging Conference nonagenarian presenters had a different slant on aging. According to Marion Rosen, "Aging isn't for sissies, it isn't something I would choose. It is limiting in a way. There are many things you no longer can do that you used to like to do. And yet you can feel very happy and very fulfilled with your life."  Anna Halprin didn't pull any punches when she said, "Aging is enlightenment at gunpoint."  Her performance at the conference of  The Courtesan and the Crone, poignantly exemplifies this view of aging. Yet, how many of us could perform this dance if and when we become nonagenarians?