With age comes insight

Morningside author and Jung expert Susan Scott teamed up with her US counterpart, Susan Schwartz, to write Aging and Becoming: A Reflective Enquiry, an inspirational book.The book comprises correspondence between the two authors, which began with each writing back and forth on the letters of the alphabet, oriented on the subject of ageing.

The two Susans challenge the view that the older woman has little to offer. Rather, ageing is an opportunity to express a more rounded out personality as the tug towards becoming authentic becomes more persistent and real – just as many reflections occur allowing for growth and new ventures to happen.

Each writer feels the shifts on emotional, psychological, mental and physical levels.

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Many losses occur at this stage of life, with friends and family dying, broken or failed partnerships, illness or incapacitation on the doorstep for many.

They address and reflect on these levels, many unsaid, in an in-depth and soulful way bringing forth their own experiences and those of others.

Scott explains the authors’ intention with the book, “This is not a ‘how to’ book. Nor is it a book about what, why, when and where. We’ve used personal stories and shared a few friends’ views. It speaks to our contemporary lives by illustrating the timeless trials and tribulations resonant to every generation.”

Schwartz said from her base in Paradise Valley, Arizona, “From the age of 50 onwards, we start to feel age more prominently. The image in the mirror becomes unknown at times. And yet the mind is sharper in many ways, the urge to develop is more insistent. The issues of love and life and the quality of both tug more insistently at our very core.”

While not yet available at bookstores in South Africa, Aging and Becoming can be acquired via Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in paperback or Kindle form, or email susanscottsa@gmail.com

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