The Biggest Lies We've Been Told About Aging | Ashton Applewhite

**Ashton Applewhite** (0:00)
But I would say the mother of all of them is that older people are a homogenous group. That at some point, we get to the other side of the velvet rope and fall off a cliff and get lumped into this sad gray mass of the elderly.
And in fact, the defining characteristic of late life is heterogeneity. The older we become, the longer we live, the more different from each other we become.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:27)
Welcome to the Midlife Chrysalis Podcast with Chip Conley, where we explore how midlife isn't a crisis, but a chrysalis, a time of profound transformation that can lead to the most meaningful chapter of your life.

**Chip Conley** (0:43)
Welcome to the Midlife Chrysalis. This is Chip Conley. And my guest today is coming straight from Brooklyn. You'll in fact hear a Brooklyn firetruck in the background toward the end of our podcast episode.
Ashton Applewhite is, she's, she is a rebel. And she, she gets her point across, whether that's on a Ted stage or in one of her four New York Times bestselling books, or whether it's, you know, speaking at the United Nations. She is a force to be reckoned with. She's probably the best known aging activist in the world. And that's because she does not hold back. She created something called Yo! Is This Agist? Which was a way for people to actually write in and ask her, you know, I said something like this or someone said this to me.
Would that be considered ageist? Because she's famous for understanding ageism. And more than anything, I think what you'll find on this episode is that we sort of, we spar a little bit, but more importantly, we realize that we're on the same team. Doing our best to not just address ageism toward older people, but ageism toward younger people as well. And to see that there is the opportunity for us to create a intergenerational collaboration, a new generational compact that would be better for all of us and the world. So for those of you who are fascinated by age as a topic, I think you're going to enjoy this episode and I'll be back with you at the end with my three key lessons. Ashton Applewhite, what a joy to have you here on The Midlife Chrysalis.

**Ashton Applewhite** (2:19)
Chip Conley, good to see you. Always a pleasure. I remember that first time we met in a diner in San Francisco. You remember that?

**Chip Conley** (2:25)
It was nice. Yeah, I love that. I love that. And your hairstyles have changed so many times. Mine might have just gotten less and less, but you know, in terms of hair. But yo, is this ageist? This is a, this is, you know, something that you have coined in the pop culture.
I want to ask you a question. We're going to the deep end of the pool to start with. There's a book that came out called Gerontology in America. It sort of represents a broad, or gerontocracy in America. It represents a point of view that a lot of people are talking about these days.
The idea that, as the subtitle of that book says, how the old are hoarding power and wealth and what to do about it. So what's your point of view on all of these people writing about this topic? Because you're one of the best known, if not the best known, aging activists in the US today, maybe in the world.

**Ashton Applewhite** (3:19)
Well, it's not a lot of competition, but thank you.
I mean, back to, yo, is this ageist? These arguments that the old are some monolith, whether for better or worse, no matter what we're supposedly up to, is the essence of ageism because it is stereotyping on the basis of age. I have a huge problem with these articles for so many reasons, but mainly for the pitting, the assumption that the interests of the young and the old are inherently opposed, which gets clicks, hostility. People love this whole trope of generational conflict and war and scarcity. That is the kind of thing that gets people like me riled up and gets people clicking, whereas the real, the fundamental issue is not about old versus young. It is about equity. It is about money. It is about class. It is about the extremely wealthy, wherever they happen to live and whatever age they happen to be profiting at the expense of all the rest of us, right? Both the 1% and the 99% are made up of people all ages, and we simply cannot afford another manufactured divide. I mean, it's absurd to think that the interests of my interests and those of, I don't want to say, my grandchildren. I don't want to reduce it to genetics, right? But the people all around the world who would like a more equitable world, no matter how old they happen to be, are inherently opposed because we were born decades apart. That's heatful, I think. It's certainly unhelpful, and I think it's also wrong.