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Comment by danbmil99 | Hacker News Reader

Great article. From the perspective of someone who's getting older, you have to come to grips with the fact that your mind and brain change in ability just like your body does. At first it can be frustrating, and you see it only as a negative. But strangely, having your brain change a bit in terms of its speed or its ability to memorize and recall things can actually give you a new perspective on solving problems and thinking about things in general. I'm not saying it's a bed of roses, for the most part it's a loss. I'm just saying you can learn to accept that and move on with the capabilities you have at the moment, rather than wallow in self-pity and see every cup as half empty.

There's also the fact that as you get older you simply know more, you've seen more patterns and data. You're like a machine learning algorithm that's been trained on a larger corpus.

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well, you have no choice but to accept it. whats the alternative? depression? meth? some tips i'm thinking for myself are: rely on the wisdom crutch--solve the right problems. stop investing mental energy in chasing the next persons fad / weekend project. take advantaged of mastered knowledge, have it finally pay it's dividends.

the older i get, the more i appreciate technology that isn't rewritten every release candidate cycle. a tip for the fifteen year old self, don't take this advice just be aware of it so you know what technology to invest in. You'll eventually want those dividends.

> some tips i'm thinking for myself are:

straight to the solutions. are you close to being ‘older’?

every day, you?

Sure beats the alternative!

     a tip for the fifteen year old self, don't take this advice just be aware of it so you know what technology to invest in

This one is awesome advice! I remember the discussions with my dad. I told him there's no other way than to compile your own operating system from scratch. How could you ever not do that? I was trying out LFS and gentoo at the time and loved it! He worked on business critical software on IBM mainframes.

I wouldn't be where I am today and wouldn't know what I know today if I hadn't done what I did at the time. Installing an LFS system teaches you a tremendous amount about how your operating system actually works (if you don't just blindly copy and paste stuff and give up if something fails). I created `ebuilds` for my favourite software at the time that wasn't part of gentoo yet. I learned a lot from compiling software with my own optimization combinations, including some things that recently went by here on HN (-O2 and -O3 are way different and while one may make things faster it can also horribly break software). I'm not a C developer and I no longer do sys/network admin work but I do like to think that it gave me a great foundation and it definitely has helped me in more than one job to be the "bridge" between the devs and the sys admins. I spoke both languages. When other devs just complained about the "unreasonable requests" the admins had for them I understood why they made those requests. I also understood the dev side though. I could translate between the two.

Nowadays? I cringe at recompiling my operating system. I just want to `apt-get install` and be done with it already from one LTS release to the next because nothing is worse than having the "TV" out of commission for longer than the couple hours it takes to download and do all the upgrades. I don't have time for this (as you can guess, my TV is a Linux box hooked up to the biggest monitor I could find for the kind of money I wanted to spend. There's not ever gonna be a "Smart TV" in my house, not over my dead body). I have kids that need their Netflix running!

> whats the alternative? depression? meth?

I certainly don't recommend it for everyone, but for Paul Erdős apparently some drugs worked well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s#Personality

When did you start noticing that change? I am going through it right now, and I am barely in my mid 30s.

It's not awful. I am still sharper than most, I find. But damn if it isn't depressing.

Mid to late 40s for me :-)

Which is where I am now.

Two mitigation strategies I employ:

1. More Sleep 2. No Alcohol

My memory deteriorated in my early twenties. Granted it was quite spectacular as a teen and is still well above average but the feeling of loss was still palpable. I used to be able to recall written pages by having a memory of where on a page things were written. Not entirely visual but the layout was there with the information. That just went away.

"There's also the fact that as you get older you simply know more, you've seen more patterns and data. You're like a machine learning algorithm that's been trained on a larger corpus."

I want to add that the professionals (MDs) I have asked think that a better education does not protect people from dementia. It only hides the creeping advance of dementia on us as we grow old.

Getting as much education and experience, IMO, is desirable because, IMO, it enriches life. But as of yet, expecting diminishing capacities is something we must accept, and plan for.

I am older now than John von Neumann was at his death.

I do not possess his genius, but my life has been far from worthless.

I do not feel myself slipping, and I have much to look forward and appreciate.

It's a matter of perspective. And of self fulfilling prophecy to some extent. If one's abilities are declining in one department and they think of themselves as less capable it stops them from pursuing other things, things which they may excel at even at older age.

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