5 ms·
I can identify with the feeling. Thinking back on the period of my late teens and early 20s, I had a lot of strong opinions on things. And I'd read about them.
by anbende 7y ago
I can identify with the feeling. Thinking back on the period of my late teens and early 20s, I had a lot of strong opinions on things. And I'd read about them. I could call upon information on those topics. I could cite the source where I read it.
In my mid-30s, I'm much less confident about just about everything. I still have some medium to strong opinions, but I've been wrong enough times about things I was sure about that it's just hard to hold such strong views on things having only read it in a book or two.
There are a couple of differences between your experience and mine though, I think. The first is that I'm about to finish my PhD and have a great deal more expertise than I did in my early 20s. So as my expertise has grown, my certainty in many things, especially those outside my field has diminished. This is largely because I realize just how much more depth most fields of knowledge have and just how much is required to really hold an informed opinion.
I also deal with a fair number of young people, college students in my department and in other contexts. I recognize some of the same certainty and optimism I used to have at their age, and I hear some of the same opinions I used to hold on such things as vegetarianism, government systems, and economic policy. I remember having those beliefs, and talking to these young adults, it's striking just how little evidence their certainty rests on. It's worse inside my field, where students come in with their "great idea" having done no research and spent all of about 5 minutes really thinking through the ramifications of their idea, but that same certainty and optimism is there.
I often wish I was as idealistic and energetic as I was 15 years ago. But I wouldn't trade it for the naive surface-level thinking that went along with it. I like seeing the depth in the world too much, even when it shows just how shallow my thinking is in most areas, and even if it means that in most areas of life I'm forced to constantly face my uncertainty and lack of expertise.
Anyway, I hope that was at least a little bit helpful.
- sjg007 7y agoWhen you are younger your learning rate of change is higher but you also don’t necessarily know what you don’t know. As you get older you start to appreciate that things are more complicated than they first appear. In school everything that you learn (besides learning how to learn) is already known. Mastery gives you confidence to approach the unknown which is life outside of formal education.
- neilv 7y agoAlso, earlier in our development (in general, or in an area), we don't yet know what's known and unknown (by anyone). Nor might we know when a teacher or mentor is communicating something textbook vs. some non-textbook insight or new idea.
- shostack 7y agoMastery has been an incredible and incredibly humbling journey. I'm not so bold as to propose I'm a master yet, but I've definitely hit a patch of "these problems are plaguing the industry and lots of smarter people have not managed to fully solve them yet." What's been fascinating is I now have sufficient perspective to have thoughts and hypothesis of how to approach solving them, but the experience to have a sense of where I'll likely hit walls. In the case of business it gets interesting because in many cases, if these problems have been solved, there's vested interests in making sure nobody else finds out how you did it, so these may actually be solved by some companies already and I'll never know.
- devtul 7y agoThis is my overall take on this. I don't think I' am getting dumber, I appreciate that experience has given me a more nuanced view on things and to be certain about something, unless that subject is really really narrow, is a type of ignorance. Doesn't mean I don't hold a strong view on some subjects, experience has also solidified things that time has shown as essential.
- rrishi 7y agoI think PhDs suffer the most from narrowly studying an area.
- mirimir 7y agoIn my experience, learning better how to learn was far more valuable than the knowledge itself.
- BurningFrog 7y agoJust a thought I have sometimes: Both these accounts fit with lower levels of testosterone with age...
- gbrown 7y agoThey'd also fit with anything else that changes over time.
- mirimir 7y agoVery true. But it's easy to crank testosterone, and see what happens.
- ak39 7y agoEasy? How?
- mirimir 7y agoOptions include intramuscular injection, slow-release implants, and skin creams. I prefer skin creams, because you get a ~normal diurnal cycle. And old-school cream, not Androgel or Testim. Because it's much less expensive, and leaves ~no residue. If you actually have low testosterone, many doctors will prescribe supplements. It may take some work to find one who doesn't consider age-related decline to be "normal", and so not warranting treatment. And if you can't, then you'll need to shop online.
- anon1253 7y agoStrength exercise seems to help https://www.webmd.com/men/features/exercise-and-testosterone#1 https://www.webmd.com/men/features/exercise-and-testosterone...
- justforyou 7y agoYou really shouldn't use WebMD as a primary source for anything. They are a content farm owned by Internet Brands and their only focus is creating content as vehicles for pharmaceutical and consumer packaged goods advertisements.
- reiinakano 7y ago> I'm much less confident about everything This doesn't seem like a bad thing. Maybe people just realize as they grow older how complex things really are, and eventually learn not to fall for the dunning Kruger effect on everything