Ask HN: How has the curse of aging affected your mental capacity? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How has the curse of aging affected your mental capacity?

3 pointsSunghoYahng12 comments

You might get better answers / discussion if you asked:

How has aging affected your intellectual capacity?

Referring to aging as a curse creates a bias. Furthermore, calling it a curse is false. Aging is a fact of life - at least at this point. Best to embrace it. Resistance is truly futile.

But to answer your original question: Aging has had some affect on my capacity. But what I've lost in quantity, I've gained at least 10x in quality.

I've also become, and perhaps this is personal, focused less (and less) on knowledge and fact, and more on understanding. That is, how things connect. What makes people - including myself - and systems "tick". It's enlightening, and certainly not a curse.

Just because it's a fact of life doesn't mean it's not a curse.

YEA though the long bony finger of DEATH beckons you towards senility, incontinence and the cold eternal grave, think to yourself: could be worse.

Oh? And all the joy and blessings prior? Just brushed aside?

Sounds like a case of one foot already in the perspective grave. Yeah, the years to follow could be punishing.

But alas, there is always hope.

Could be worse: you could waste your life fretting about it, and it happens anyway.

Curse:

- An appeal or prayer for evil or misfortune to befall someone or something.

- Evil or misfortune that comes as if in response to such an appeal.

- A source or cause of evil; a scourge.

And who or what put this "curse" on you?

True story: It - whatever it may be - is all in *your* head. Life is too short to...curse yourself.

Sure, pray the cancel culture cancels aging. But until then, suck it up cupcake and deal with it (and your self imposed "curse").

All facts of life are a curse when you consider life to be a terminal, sexually-transmitted disease.

Not the age is my problem, but hearing loss and the need for adapters. I can't wear them 24/7 and when not wearing, I notice a dumpiness in my brain. Over the years I notice that it become difficult to follow by hearing, I need something to read and little more time to think about and to understand the topic. But it's just my perception. May be it's the age and dumpiness of hearing is just a coincidence. Can't sort it out.

But, accumulated experience is even more worth than sharp thinking. Experience accumulation is a kind of byproduct of sharp thinking, that has been used by my younger me once in a while.

When working on programs I wrote a year or more ago, I have to re-read the comments and any documentation in order to recollect my thoughts on how it works and why I did things the way I did.

When working on large programs, I need to keep multiple portions visible in different windows/screens in order to grok the interdependencies.

I don't enjoy reading books as much as I used to.

I don't think that's just age! One reason to leave extensive (good) comments and not skimp with "the code is self-documenting" fib. It almost never is, even to the person who wrote it, a year ago...

Mental math is way harder.

Neuroplasticity or lack thereof also way more noticeable. Previously I feel like I could learn a new subject/topic pretty quickly, now it's taking way more time. That said at the same time having noticed this "problem" I now always do a double take on whether I need to really learn something new(cos opp. cost is way higher), so at the same time more pre-commitment => less garbage in my brain.

I seem to be doing fine: a little less sharp at some things, a lot of accumulated experience helps with others (the usual "fluid" vs "crystallised" intelligence thing)!

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