10 ms·

The fertility of the older mind

290 points by ALee 9y ago

andrewbinstock 9y ago
Much of what this article says seems familiar from reading other pieces on this topic, but what was truly new (to me, at least) was the role that exercise/activity in making it possible to anchor and retain what is learned.
mythrwy 9y ago
When I reached my early 30's I felt I was getting old. Looking back I believe this is because I was indeed just past the age of physical prime and could feel the slight slowdown. When I reached my early 40's all that went away and I kept forgetting I wasn't in my 20's. (although I certainly am not). I didn't feel "old" anymore, but did start to realize life was short and think more about the future. I don't know if starting to feel "old" in early 30's is common or not. But 30's is a great decade. You certainly aren't "old" at that time relatively, no matter how much you suspect it. I didn't care so much for the 20's. You are still a kid in many ways with kid habits and not as much control over yourself as you learn later, but you don't know it. Or at least I didn't.
- aklemm 9y ago
  Resonates with me. Either we aren't ready for society in our 20s or society isn't ready for us. Either way, I think there's a missed opportunity there for a better use of that decade.
- cableshaft 9y ago
  Eh, for me the health problems started once I turned 30 (I'm now in my mid-30s). So yeah, I feel a little old, because I get little reminders multiple times throughout the day. Nothing too bad, at least not yet, but enough that I suspect in ten to twenty years I'll be one of those with more serious problems. Also even though I'm still pretty darn smart, my mental retrieval speed seems to be a lot slower than it used to be. Has made interviews in particular harder to get through. However, on the plus side, I didn't really start getting comfortable in my own skin until my thirties either. Started figuring out how to talk to people without getting nervous or assuming they're judging every little thing I say and do, started dating a lot more (even though I was in much better physical shape a long time ago I was too self-conscious or kept making excuses not to take chances back then), and figured out some activities I really enjoy that I probably wouldn't have even attempted in my teens and twenties, so there's that.
mirimir 9y ago
> A simple lack of confidence may present the biggest barrier – particularly for older learners, past retirement, who may have already started to fear a more general cognitive decline. I see this frequently in teaching. It's a horrible downward spiral. And it's been hard for me to learn tact, so I don't add to the problem.
deepGem 9y ago
I think the single largest obstacle for the older mind to learn is time. A lot more responsibilities curtails your ability to spend as much time as you want to learn a new skill.
adamstockdill 9y ago
Education has no age limit.
- HarryHirsch 9y ago
  Hiring does, though. It's clear that a compliant workforce is considered a greater necessity than a competent one.
  - ConceptJunkie 9y ago
    And a cheap workforce is considered a greater necessity than a competent or compliant one.
gopalv 9y ago
> Or perhaps children are simply less inhibited and aren’t so scared about making mistakes. Struck a chord there - because I had come to the same conclusion of sorts, about my ability to practice activities in public. Riding a bicycle is a fairly hard thing to learn and very easy to practice (from my experience), but learning to do that when everyone around is falling off them was much less of a struggle than trying to learn ice skating in my mid thirties, when everyone at the "cheap skate night" is just gliding by with no effort. There's a certain embarrassment which distracts from the task at hand. And being good at several other things, which are more immediately satisfying to do also factors into the decision to spend time learning something new which you'll never be as good as the ones who started when they were 5. Right now, I'm struggling to learn enough spanish to converse with my kid & observing language learning first-hand, in third person. The words just come out without any particular boundaries in production - grammar, conjugations, gender, whether it is the right word. Everything is optional and the only discouraging response is skipping the conversation and trying to ignore it.
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
  I'm 36 and only weeks ago started skiing. My way of dealing with the "embarrassment" of face planting the snow a lot, though I can't say I ever consciously chose this, is to make sure I'm the one doing most of the laughing. My belief is this: given how much I've learned from my mistakes, I think it would be wise to make quite a few more. Hopefully new ones.
  - BatFastard 9y ago
    I always went with the idea that if you are not face planting, you are not trying hard enough.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
      I'm going to apply that to my attempts at learning to program.
- koolba 9y ago
kevmo 9y ago
I am 33, and I have paid a lot of anecdotal attention to what seems to keep my brain fresh, i.e. able to still learn new skills at a rapid clip. Just by way of credentials: I was a successful lawyer for a few years of my 20s (rising to level of federal law clerk), but then taught myself to program and have been working as a professional programmer since shortly before my 30th birthday. Even though I am on the older side of the programmer market, my career has been great, and I've been able to rapidly rise in the ranks. I also know a fair amount about design and business strategy now. The secret seems to be: Practice. If you want to be able to do new things, you need to always be doing new things. I am always trying to learn something new - mentally and physically. For example, I am very right-side dominant in my body, but I have lately been trying to open more doors with my left hand, throw stuff at the trashcan with it, etc. Always be doing at least one new thing in your life if you want to be doing new things for the rest of your life. It is OK to fail at a new thing! You just have to admit failure, pat yourself on the back for your courage, take stock of what went right and wrong, then pick a new new thing to do. Relatedly, I have noticed that some people who I considered much smarter than me as a teenager often no longer appear to be, and I believe it is because they stopped trying to grow new types of skills and thus let their brains stagnate. It is hard to do unfamiliar things, but so worth it.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  You're 33, you're not on the 'older side of the programmer market.' If anyone tells you that, I suggest you take a long hard look at who they actually are.
  - kevmo 9y ago
    When I was a junior programmer at 30, it sure felt like I was on the older side. :) It's a separate subject, but there is a lot of age bias in the field.
    - Cerium 9y ago
      I guess you have to be in the right place. I'm 28, and the most junior person on my team by at least 5 years in age and 8 in experience. It is great, since I have so many people to learn from.
matt2000 9y ago
As I get older it gets much much harder to feel stupid at something new when you know what it feels like to be very good at something else. This I feel is the key reason people stop picking up new skills, it feels miserable to be back at a beginner level and so much more satisfying to do something you’re proficient at. However, if you can recognize this and reset your expectations then you will probably find you have extensive general skills to bring to bear around learning and self discipline. Those skills will make the actual learning process overall much quicker compared to learning your first few major skills, it just might not feel like it.
- DamonHD 9y ago
  Actually I read your opening line the opposite way you intended, and agreed with my version of it! I find myself less stressed by inevitable failures as I know that I have already proved myself in a number of ways, so anyone who infers idiocy from my learning stumbles may themselves be the idiot... %-P
sireat 9y ago
I think the article paints too rosy a picture for older minds. Yes you can learn things as you get older but the bar for your achievements gets lower and lower as you age. Let's take chess: There are no cases of a novice starting to learn at the age of 25 and becoming a grandmaster. You need to do some of that deliberate practice at an early age. I suspect the case is the same for math,programming, violin playing etc. Interesting thread on the topic is here: https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/who-is-the-oldest-person-ever-to-become-grandmaster https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/who-is-the-oldest-p... It is not just the case of kids having more time to dedicate to a skill/hobby because there are people of independent means who pursue chess at an adult age and still fail to advance. As you get older your ability to truly master a skill declines. That does not mean that you can't become a productive programmer at age 60 or 70. It just means that you will not achieve Bill Joy || Fabrice Bellard || John Carmack levels of proficiency and I suppose that is ok. :)
- adrianmonk 9y ago
  It's true that as a general rule, if you haven't revolutionized (or greatly impacted) your field by age 30, you're likely not going to ever do it. However, that doesn't mean that the mind of people over 30 doesn't work as well. It may just be that people have different personality types, some people don't care that much about revolutionizing the world, and those who do care do not require all that long to do it. So by age 30 or so, you're left with two self-selected groups: those who passionately wished to change the world and those who focused on some other priority in life instead.
  - pseud0r 9y ago
    There's plenty of people who does revolutionary work after their 30s. Look at current nobel prize winners in physics for example. Many of them weren't young when they did their most important work. I read an article about this some time ago, but I wasn't able to find it at the moment.
- Sacho 9y ago
  Doesn't the level of grandmaster evolve over time - it is essentially a competition between players who are getting better and better? That means you're not asking whether a 25 year old can achieve a static goal(e.g. read 50 books), but you're asking them to successfully compete with everyone else, which includes other 25 year olds but with 15+ years of experience.
allsunny 9y ago
The best time to have learned something new was 10 years ago. The second best time is now.
okreallywtf 9y ago
One thing I've been trying to do lately is constantly be learning a new juggling trick. For years I just did what I could already do (which wasn't much, but 100% more than people who don't juggle at all), but I've been enjoying breaking down coordination barriers with new tricks (even simple ones) that are similar to things I have done but just different enough to mess my mind up.
yodsanklai 9y ago
One issue I'm having when learning new things (at 41) is memory. I don't feel less sharp than before, but I have a harder time to recall things that I studied a few months before. For instance, I regularly take coursera classes but one year later, I don't remember much. I'm trying to take more notes, hopefully it'll help.
- sowbug 9y ago
  Are you absolutely certain it was better when you were younger? I don't remember much from high school or college, especially for the classes where I crammed the night before exams. If you do remember your studies better from youth, consider that a high school or college course is typically several months' worth of daily classes, while a Coursera class is maybe 10 hours total where your brain thinks you're vegging out at home alone watching TV. If you could somehow spare a full-time semester today at 41, I bet you'd retain a good amount of what you learned.
- Allower 9y ago
  Sounds like you dont use the things you learn..
- twoquestions 9y ago
  Do you exercize? At 25 my memory was great even after a week of sitting on my ass, but now that I'm 31 my memory goes straight to Hell if I don't break a sweat at least twice a week. Copious notes helps too :)
hathawsh 9y ago
As a child I was obsessively aware of other people's opinions of me, so I was afraid to make mistakes. Today, I am much better at putting myself in the learning mindset because I have learned a basic truth: learning is essentially the same as temporarily making a fool of myself, but in a safe place. That's how we all learned to walk, talk, and read, after all. If we can learn such complex skills as those then we can surely pick up a lot more skills, with effort. I wish I had understood that as a child. I tried to learn to dance and act, but I mostly failed because I didn't really put myself out there. I did learn to sing thanks to choirs. I got into computers partly because all my mistakes were completely private. There's no reason I can't continue to learn new skills. I just need to shed my ego and try things without reservation.
- danielam 9y ago
  In other words, you can only learn to do by doing. However, I don't agree with the "safe place" bit. Sure, some things require a safe setting to practice in because of the danger the real thing entails, but that's not most things. You need to meet reality as it is and as you are--that's when the gears really click into place and you begin to grow. It's why pretense will always stifle learning because you're too busy shutting yourself off from a real encounter. It's a retreat from reality and into the blinding comfort of the ego. Indeed, humility, so often confused with modesty, is actually the honest appraisal of the self, strengths and weaknesses, and the willingness to examine them as fully as necessary. Those who lack humility ultimately lack the courage to go out and to gladly be subjected to all the feedback, good and bad, constructive or not. I have found that it profits a person immensely to stop trying to appear smart and to be fully honest and open to being affected, changed and improved. It's the only way to learn and to learn about yourself. Only then can the hunger of ignorance be fed with knowledge and understanding and the shackles of error and confusion be broken. There is no practice life. You learn by living.
  - magic_beans 9y ago
    This is what I love about circus training. When you fail, you fall down. Or worse: you collapse on your partner. If you can learn to handstand on someone else's hands without, you can do just about anything. The point being: you have to just go for it. You WILL fail at some point, in any and every endeavor. But the reward is that you might just be doing a handstand on another person :)

290 points by ALee 9y ago

Much of what this article says seems familiar from reading other pieces on this topic, but what was truly new (to me, at least) was the role that exercise/activity in making it possible to anchor and retain what is learned.

mythrwy 9y ago

When I reached my early 30's I felt I was getting old. Looking back I believe this is because I was indeed just past the age of physical prime and could feel the slight slowdown. When I reached my early 40's all that went away and I kept forgetting I wasn't in my 20's. (although I certainly am not). I didn't feel "old" anymore, but did start to realize life was short and think more about the future. I don't know if starting to feel "old" in early 30's is common or not. But 30's is a great decade. You certainly aren't "old" at that time relatively, no matter how much you suspect it. I didn't care so much for the 20's. You are still a kid in many ways with kid habits and not as much control over yourself as you learn later, but you don't know it. Or at least I didn't.

aklemm 9y ago
Resonates with me. Either we aren't ready for society in our 20s or society isn't ready for us. Either way, I think there's a missed opportunity there for a better use of that decade.
cableshaft 9y ago
Eh, for me the health problems started once I turned 30 (I'm now in my mid-30s). So yeah, I feel a little old, because I get little reminders multiple times throughout the day. Nothing too bad, at least not yet, but enough that I suspect in ten to twenty years I'll be one of those with more serious problems. Also even though I'm still pretty darn smart, my mental retrieval speed seems to be a lot slower than it used to be. Has made interviews in particular harder to get through. However, on the plus side, I didn't really start getting comfortable in my own skin until my thirties either. Started figuring out how to talk to people without getting nervous or assuming they're judging every little thing I say and do, started dating a lot more (even though I was in much better physical shape a long time ago I was too self-conscious or kept making excuses not to take chances back then), and figured out some activities I really enjoy that I probably wouldn't have even attempted in my teens and twenties, so there's that.

mirimir 9y ago

> A simple lack of confidence may present the biggest barrier – particularly for older learners, past retirement, who may have already started to fear a more general cognitive decline. I see this frequently in teaching. It's a horrible downward spiral. And it's been hard for me to learn tact, so I don't add to the problem.

deepGem 9y ago

I think the single largest obstacle for the older mind to learn is time. A lot more responsibilities curtails your ability to spend as much time as you want to learn a new skill.

adamstockdill 9y ago

Education has no age limit.

HarryHirsch 9y ago
Hiring does, though. It's clear that a compliant workforce is considered a greater necessity than a competent one.
- ConceptJunkie 9y ago
  And a cheap workforce is considered a greater necessity than a competent or compliant one.

gopalv 9y ago

> Or perhaps children are simply less inhibited and aren’t so scared about making mistakes. Struck a chord there - because I had come to the same conclusion of sorts, about my ability to practice activities in public. Riding a bicycle is a fairly hard thing to learn and very easy to practice (from my experience), but learning to do that when everyone around is falling off them was much less of a struggle than trying to learn ice skating in my mid thirties, when everyone at the "cheap skate night" is just gliding by with no effort. There's a certain embarrassment which distracts from the task at hand. And being good at several other things, which are more immediately satisfying to do also factors into the decision to spend time learning something new which you'll never be as good as the ones who started when they were 5. Right now, I'm struggling to learn enough spanish to converse with my kid & observing language learning first-hand, in third person. The words just come out without any particular boundaries in production - grammar, conjugations, gender, whether it is the right word. Everything is optional and the only discouraging response is skipping the conversation and trying to ignore it.

TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
I'm 36 and only weeks ago started skiing. My way of dealing with the "embarrassment" of face planting the snow a lot, though I can't say I ever consciously chose this, is to make sure I'm the one doing most of the laughing. My belief is this: given how much I've learned from my mistakes, I think it would be wise to make quite a few more. Hopefully new ones.
- BatFastard 9y ago
  I always went with the idea that if you are not face planting, you are not trying hard enough.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
    I'm going to apply that to my attempts at learning to program.
koolba 9y ago

kevmo 9y ago

I am 33, and I have paid a lot of anecdotal attention to what seems to keep my brain fresh, i.e. able to still learn new skills at a rapid clip. Just by way of credentials: I was a successful lawyer for a few years of my 20s (rising to level of federal law clerk), but then taught myself to program and have been working as a professional programmer since shortly before my 30th birthday. Even though I am on the older side of the programmer market, my career has been great, and I've been able to rapidly rise in the ranks. I also know a fair amount about design and business strategy now. The secret seems to be: Practice. If you want to be able to do new things, you need to always be doing new things. I am always trying to learn something new - mentally and physically. For example, I am very right-side dominant in my body, but I have lately been trying to open more doors with my left hand, throw stuff at the trashcan with it, etc. Always be doing at least one new thing in your life if you want to be doing new things for the rest of your life. It is OK to fail at a new thing! You just have to admit failure, pat yourself on the back for your courage, take stock of what went right and wrong, then pick a new new thing to do. Relatedly, I have noticed that some people who I considered much smarter than me as a teenager often no longer appear to be, and I believe it is because they stopped trying to grow new types of skills and thus let their brains stagnate. It is hard to do unfamiliar things, but so worth it.

wavefunction 9y ago
You're 33, you're not on the 'older side of the programmer market.' If anyone tells you that, I suggest you take a long hard look at who they actually are.
- kevmo 9y ago
  When I was a junior programmer at 30, it sure felt like I was on the older side. :) It's a separate subject, but there is a lot of age bias in the field.
  - Cerium 9y ago
    I guess you have to be in the right place. I'm 28, and the most junior person on my team by at least 5 years in age and 8 in experience. It is great, since I have so many people to learn from.

matt2000 9y ago

As I get older it gets much much harder to feel stupid at something new when you know what it feels like to be very good at something else. This I feel is the key reason people stop picking up new skills, it feels miserable to be back at a beginner level and so much more satisfying to do something you’re proficient at. However, if you can recognize this and reset your expectations then you will probably find you have extensive general skills to bring to bear around learning and self discipline. Those skills will make the actual learning process overall much quicker compared to learning your first few major skills, it just might not feel like it.

DamonHD 9y ago
Actually I read your opening line the opposite way you intended, and agreed with my version of it! I find myself less stressed by inevitable failures as I know that I have already proved myself in a number of ways, so anyone who infers idiocy from my learning stumbles may themselves be the idiot... %-P

sireat 9y ago

I think the article paints too rosy a picture for older minds. Yes you can learn things as you get older but the bar for your achievements gets lower and lower as you age. Let's take chess: There are no cases of a novice starting to learn at the age of 25 and becoming a grandmaster. You need to do some of that deliberate practice at an early age. I suspect the case is the same for math,programming, violin playing etc. Interesting thread on the topic is here: https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/who-is-the-oldest-person-ever-to-become-grandmaster https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/who-is-the-oldest-p... It is not just the case of kids having more time to dedicate to a skill/hobby because there are people of independent means who pursue chess at an adult age and still fail to advance. As you get older your ability to truly master a skill declines. That does not mean that you can't become a productive programmer at age 60 or 70. It just means that you will not achieve Bill Joy || Fabrice Bellard || John Carmack levels of proficiency and I suppose that is ok. :)

adrianmonk 9y ago
It's true that as a general rule, if you haven't revolutionized (or greatly impacted) your field by age 30, you're likely not going to ever do it. However, that doesn't mean that the mind of people over 30 doesn't work as well. It may just be that people have different personality types, some people don't care that much about revolutionizing the world, and those who do care do not require all that long to do it. So by age 30 or so, you're left with two self-selected groups: those who passionately wished to change the world and those who focused on some other priority in life instead.
- pseud0r 9y ago
  There's plenty of people who does revolutionary work after their 30s. Look at current nobel prize winners in physics for example. Many of them weren't young when they did their most important work. I read an article about this some time ago, but I wasn't able to find it at the moment.
Sacho 9y ago
Doesn't the level of grandmaster evolve over time - it is essentially a competition between players who are getting better and better? That means you're not asking whether a 25 year old can achieve a static goal(e.g. read 50 books), but you're asking them to successfully compete with everyone else, which includes other 25 year olds but with 15+ years of experience.

allsunny 9y ago

The best time to have learned something new was 10 years ago. The second best time is now.

okreallywtf 9y ago

One thing I've been trying to do lately is constantly be learning a new juggling trick. For years I just did what I could already do (which wasn't much, but 100% more than people who don't juggle at all), but I've been enjoying breaking down coordination barriers with new tricks (even simple ones) that are similar to things I have done but just different enough to mess my mind up.

yodsanklai 9y ago

One issue I'm having when learning new things (at 41) is memory. I don't feel less sharp than before, but I have a harder time to recall things that I studied a few months before. For instance, I regularly take coursera classes but one year later, I don't remember much. I'm trying to take more notes, hopefully it'll help.

sowbug 9y ago
Are you absolutely certain it was better when you were younger? I don't remember much from high school or college, especially for the classes where I crammed the night before exams. If you do remember your studies better from youth, consider that a high school or college course is typically several months' worth of daily classes, while a Coursera class is maybe 10 hours total where your brain thinks you're vegging out at home alone watching TV. If you could somehow spare a full-time semester today at 41, I bet you'd retain a good amount of what you learned.
Allower 9y ago
Sounds like you dont use the things you learn..
twoquestions 9y ago
Do you exercize? At 25 my memory was great even after a week of sitting on my ass, but now that I'm 31 my memory goes straight to Hell if I don't break a sweat at least twice a week. Copious notes helps too :)

hathawsh 9y ago

As a child I was obsessively aware of other people's opinions of me, so I was afraid to make mistakes. Today, I am much better at putting myself in the learning mindset because I have learned a basic truth: learning is essentially the same as temporarily making a fool of myself, but in a safe place. That's how we all learned to walk, talk, and read, after all. If we can learn such complex skills as those then we can surely pick up a lot more skills, with effort. I wish I had understood that as a child. I tried to learn to dance and act, but I mostly failed because I didn't really put myself out there. I did learn to sing thanks to choirs. I got into computers partly because all my mistakes were completely private. There's no reason I can't continue to learn new skills. I just need to shed my ego and try things without reservation.

danielam 9y ago
In other words, you can only learn to do by doing. However, I don't agree with the "safe place" bit. Sure, some things require a safe setting to practice in because of the danger the real thing entails, but that's not most things. You need to meet reality as it is and as you are--that's when the gears really click into place and you begin to grow. It's why pretense will always stifle learning because you're too busy shutting yourself off from a real encounter. It's a retreat from reality and into the blinding comfort of the ego. Indeed, humility, so often confused with modesty, is actually the honest appraisal of the self, strengths and weaknesses, and the willingness to examine them as fully as necessary. Those who lack humility ultimately lack the courage to go out and to gladly be subjected to all the feedback, good and bad, constructive or not. I have found that it profits a person immensely to stop trying to appear smart and to be fully honest and open to being affected, changed and improved. It's the only way to learn and to learn about yourself. Only then can the hunger of ignorance be fed with knowledge and understanding and the shackles of error and confusion be broken. There is no practice life. You learn by living.
- magic_beans 9y ago
  This is what I love about circus training. When you fail, you fall down. Or worse: you collapse on your partner. If you can learn to handstand on someone else's hands without, you can do just about anything. The point being: you have to just go for it. You WILL fail at some point, in any and every endeavor. But the reward is that you might just be doing a handstand on another person :)