Putting The 'F' Word Into Aging

If you were hoping for another word, you are about to be disappointed. What follows is my MIT AgeLab New Year's message.

“I think it's really a part of the human condition that you've got to have some fun.”

Jimmy Buffett (1946–2023)

Dear members, friends, supporters, and research participants of the MIT AgeLab: Happy New Year. Let me take you back to the start of another year: 1946. I wasn’t born yet, but two babies would be—at the start and end of that year—who would shape my life, and life’s work, profoundly.

The first arrived in Philadelphia’s St. Agnes Hospital, a second after midnight on New Year’s Day. That newborn, Kathleen Casey, would later be recognized as the first baby boomer. Now named Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, she just celebrated her 78th birthday. When I first began researching population aging and its effects in the 1990s, Casey-Kirschling’s generation, to which I also belong, was top of mind for everyone studying the issue. The baby boomers, and the demographic bulge they formed, had gone through their lives bedeviled by insufficiency: not enough classrooms, not enough desks, not enough houses, not enough cars. These shortfalls soon provoked massive increases in economic production and development. The question on the minds of academics and policymakers studying aging in the 1990s had to do with future shortfalls: this time concerning the needs of older adults—a category to which somehow, impossibly, the generation named after mewling infants would soon belong. As Casey-Kirschling and the millions queued up behind her began their slow march into a new millennium, would they encounter an economy, infrastructure, and built environment adequate to meet their basic needs? And what could be done to make up any shortfalls?

Rewind to 1946. Nobody knew at the time that the babies then being born would spend their lives under the banner of a special generational nickname. And certainly, no one understood they would grow up to become “the people our parents warned us about,” as one of them, Jimmy Buffett, would put it when he grew up. Buffett would go on to create songs including “Margaritaville,” and later, retirement communities bearing the same name. (As well as a restaurant chain; and cruise, food-and-beverage, and apparel lines—but who’s counting.) He also happened to be my favorite musical artist, whom I was lucky enough to see in concert many times. He died this past September at age 76.

His passing would have made 2023 a sad year for this particular Parrothead, if not for the fact that I can say in sincerity that his spirit has animated, and continues to animate, an important aspect of our work at the MIT AgeLab.

What I’m talking about is fun.

When I think back to the Nineties and the problem of solving shortfalls that engaged so many aging-and-economics-oriented researchers and policymakers, the overwhelming focus was (rightfully!) on base-level needs that, frankly, were not very fun to think about. Would Casey-Kirschling’s generation, at a fundamental level, be okay as it entered its later decades? It wasn’t clear they would, and folks hailing from government and non-profit sectors were justifiably concerned.

Although they didn’t have time (or funding) to worry about seeming frivolities like fun, the private sector did. Already, there was plenty of business activity churning around leisure products for older people, from retirement housing developments that were sold as a perma-vacation, to the stuff of actual vacations: cruises, beaches, golf outings, bike rides in floppy hats.

What was missing, however, in between these needs-based and wants-based visions of old age, was a place for excitement and delight in the interstices of daily life: for most older people (who would never live in a destination retirement setting), most of the time (not just on vacation once a year). In the objects they touched and beheld, in the services they interacted with, in the policies that served them, in the built environment: Who would look out for the lived experience of tomorrow’s older adults? Focusing on leisure alone wouldn’t get us there, but neither would paying attention purely to basic needs, as vitally necessary as that work was and continues to be. We also needed to make progress in the neglected middle of the spectrum: to make daily life better—yes, healthier, but also more connected, more social, more meaningful, more fully actualized, for tomorrow’s growing population of older adults.

Back to Jimmy Buffett. As an entrepreneur, he mostly operated at the leisure-and-vacation end of our spectrum. As an artist, however, whose canvas included not only his music but his persona—his entire vibe, as they say—he has served as an important reminder not to confuse “serious” for “good.” These categories can and do overlap, of course, but just as often, a sense of fun can drive people to seek out new, virtuous horizons like healthy behaviors and social living. Meanwhile, a dour, even anhedonic approach to addressing serious needs can lead to poor uptake of, and adherence to, potentially lifesaving products, including senior housing, home modifications, medicines, and health and communications technologies.

Fun often outperforms seriousness when it comes to motivating people, and I think the reason why boils down to a single question:

As we grow older, is our primary goal to stay alive, or to have a life?

The answer is “both,” of course—but all too often, it’s possible to lose sight of the latter. Nobody needs me to tell them that old age is full of grave possibilities and eventualities. But it can also be full of wonderful people, places, and things—and to the extent we can amplify those positives while diminishing the negatives, later life is ripe for a quality-of-life revolution.

Deciding what is good or fun is ultimately more of a question for artists than scientists. Your own sources of artistic inspiration may vary, but for me, the music and attitude of Jimmy Buffet has proven an important navigational guide: a welcome hand keeping fun centered in my spyglass. As he put it, “It's important to have as much fun as possible while we're here.”

And speaking of how long we’ve been here, this coming year, the MIT AgeLab will have existed for a quarter century. Every day, the AgeLab team continues to inspire me in their drive, tenacity, and creativity, as they work to understand the evolving reality of life for older adults and their loved ones, and to make that reality a little bit better.

This year, as we ring in our 25th anniversary, we will continue in this mission, which becomes more important every year as populations grow older. We couldn’t do it without all of you: the larger community that makes the AgeLab possible.

On the behalf of the AgeLab and the people powering its work, here’s to a new year where we wrestle with the profound problems before us—and remember to have fun along the way.

As Jimmy would say: “That’s my story—and I’m sticking to it!”

Happy New Year,

Joe Coughlin