Thinking of age: Personal reflections on critical gerontology

This essay is a reflection on how personal experience has inspired and shaped my ideas about critical gerontology. It is a writing from the inside about the outside world of intellectual discovery, apart from the typical narratives about career and research. I take this opportunity to explore the life of thought through my own life, and conclude that our ideas about aging are bred in those places where humor, tragedy, conflict, passion and sympathy make it imperative that we ask the questions we do as critical thinkers.