ABSTRACT
Comic strips generally depict a humorous event. Picture now a cartoon with two retired gentlemen seated on a park bench. One turns to the other and asks, “Who did you used to be?” (from the small society by Brickman). Brickman’s attempt at humor depicts what the psychological process of aging is all about. The question the man poses implies a “life” before retirement, a pre-retirement “person” now lost and gone forever. At retirement age, one is well on their way in the aging process, a process that actually is a lifelong one. For a few years in that process we acquire and gain but for most of that process we lose. LOSS is what the psychological process of aging is all about.
