When you are young you think that it takes a long time to reach old age and that there is no problem to be solved by young people, that is what adults are for. However, time passes and, without realizing it, one is approaching that age that every human being inevitably has to live, following the cycles of life. Therefore, it is important to consider this issue in more depth among all the Japanese communities in the Americas, exchanging valid experiences, as well as eventual failures, so that through these contributions we can reach effective development in relation to this problem. . Each of us should analyze this issue as a civic duty within the Japanese and Nikkei communities of this continent.
The project of caring for the elderly is long-term, it must start from a young age. After a visit to a community of German descendants in regions far from the capital, we have noticed something worth commenting on: the contribution of young people from their first job to social aid and this includes, in addition to communal improvement, care of the third Age. Over the years, each citizen contributes conscientiously and is retributive and cumulative: “One contributes in the present for others, when they reach old age, others contribute for one's subsistence.”
The maintenance of a Nursing Home requires a lot of investment, especially for the care of disabled, sick and terminally ill elderly people. This is a worrying reality that is emerging in modern life and currently with greater volume in large cities.
Material achievement and professional fulfillment is a tough competition between the new generation and the care of the elderly remains the responsibility of an institution or a nursing home. Or, failing that, in home care through volunteers or experts. However, it is never too late to analyze this project aimed at finding a safe and imminent refuge for the elderly.
On the other hand, it is important to consider that old age, metaphorically, is the autumn of life, in which the fruits ripen and take on a special color and the flavor is accentuated at its highest level, that is, they become delicious. The human being, having reached that stage of life, has mastery of life and is fully mature, willing to contribute with the fruits he is reaping; That is, the accumulated wealth of knowledge through experience with a breadth of criteria and a much broader vision of life, but which physically deteriorates and the usufruct of that body becomes like a burden.
It should not be considered, therefore, that the elderly are obsolete and that they are already out of use within this modern era, in which technological advances, the speed of communication and the many advantages that neoliberalism and capitalism have produced, also creating new individuals in accordance with the society in which they develop. On the contrary, it is important to rescue and value the discipline, the ethics, the philosophy of life that has been sustaining the attitudinal and work experience and the Japanese ethos that has not gone out of fashion. Making a selective combination between the past and the present would be ideal. As long as there is respect and consideration in which the human being is truly human, such paradigms will never be exhausted.
© 2010 Emi Kasamatsu
