James Wallace Harris, 2/26/24
I’m hitting a new cognitive barrier that stops me cold. It’s making me doubt myself. I’ve been watching several YouTubers report on the latest news in artificial intelligence and I’ve been amazed by their ability to understand and summarize a great amount complex information. I want to understand the same information and summarize it too, but I can’t. Struggling to do so wounds my ego.
This experience is forcing me to contemplate my decaying cognitive abilities. I had a similar shock ten years ago when I retired. I was sixty-two and training a woman in her twenties to take over my job. She blew my mind by absorbing the information I gave her as fast as I could tell her. One reason I chose to retire early is because I couldn’t learn the new programming language, framework, and IDE that our IT department was making standard. That young woman was learning my servers and old programs in a language she didn’t know at a speed that shocked and awed me. My ego figured something was up, even then, when it was obvious this young woman could think several times faster than I could. I realized that’s what getting old meant.
I feel like a little aquarium fish that keeps bumping into an invisible barrier. My Zen realization is I’ve been put in a smaller tank. I need to map the territory and learn how to live with my new limitations. Of course, my ego still wants to maximize what I can do within those limits.
I remember as my mother got older, my sister and I had to decide when and where she could drive because she wouldn’t limit herself for her own safety. Eventually, my sister and I had to take her car away. I’m starting to realize that I can’t write about certain ideas because I can’t comprehend them. Will I always have the self-awareness to know what I can comprehend and what I can’t?
This makes me think of Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Both are older than I am. Does Biden realize what he’s forgotten? Does Trump even understand he can’t possibly know everything he thinks he knows? Neither guy wants to give up because of their egos.
So, what am I not seeing about myself? I’m reminded of Charlie Gordon in the story “Flowers for Algernon,” when Charlie was in his intellectual decline phase.
Are there tools we could use to measure our own decline? Well, that’s a topic for another essay, but I believe blogging might be one such tool.
JWH
Auxiliary Memory 
One of the many things that differentiate Biden from Trump is that Biden’s team includes many bright and accomplished young people, and he actively includes their input into his decisions. (We all know that Trump doesn’t listen to anyone if they don’t agree with whatever he has come up with.) I don’t know how we “elders” can translate that into our daily lives, but it is something to consider.
I first read “Flowers for Algernon” when I was about thirteen. I thought it was pretty sad. Now, at 74 I think it’s really f—–g sad. I’m experiencing the same decline. One thing I do is get multiple sources and gnaw off a little piece of each occurrence. For example I get Auxiliary Memory from both RSS and email.
I do the multiple sources too. I like getting books in print, audio, and ebook editions. They each provide a different experience that helps understand the book.
You and I are a lot of like in many ways.
Me, too, Jim. I’m 76 and I know my cognitive capacity and skills are going. I think I had an inkling of this before I retired 13 or so years ago. I was having a hard time remembering the names of my students and that is NOT good for a kindergartners self-esteem!!!
I had to take a cognitive test for Medicare a couple weeks ago – I did okay but not what I would have at age 62. My mom had to take them from time to time (she was 96 and in a nursing hone) and the last one I was with her for it the nurse went to tell her the 3 things she had to remember and she just told her no – she couldn’t do that. LOL! (I only got 2 of my 3.)
My mom played bridge and did crossword puzzles and read on her Kindle like a champ. Bridge until 93 or 94, Kindle to 97 and crossword puzzles she left off at about 92. She died at 97. She had a fair amount of forgetting and confusion by then.
I think you’re really on to something keeping on with the blogging – I too keep writing up book reviews. I started doing them just to remember what all I’d read (so I could go back and check 3 years later). Somewhere along the line I realized it was good for organizing my thoughts. (Editing is easier.)
A very thought-provoking post, Jim. It reminded me of an interview I read just yesterday with Marilynne Robinson in the New York Times Magazine. She’s 80 and looks at aging in what I thought was a wise and refreshing way, including her take on us having a president in his 80s. Here’s a link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/18/magazine/marilynne-robinson-interview.html The whole interview is fascinating, and the part about Biden is toward the end.
Thanks. I started that piece when it came out. I’ll try and finish it.
Hi Jim. Two things: cognitive decline is not a foregone conclusion and you are not your former job title. Some jobs morph according to the social, technological, economical, environmental, and political influences of the day, some jobs are disappearing and some have already gone the way of the dinosaur. Hence the ongoing need for formal learning and training so the students of today are ready for the jobs of tomorrow. So, when you compare your skill set to those of someone who happens to younger: are you comparing apples to apples? The fact that you write and an audience is only too eager to read your blog posts tells me you possess innate ability and expertise beyond the scope of your former job.
Well, I was making a relative comparison. When I was younger, back in the 1980s, I trained hundreds of people to use the computer as it was being introduced to staff and professors at my university. I noticed that some people learned faster than others. It wasn’t always age related, but often it was. I remember getting impatient with training many people in their sixties when I was in my twenties because they were so slow to learn. So, is it so strange, that when I was in my sixties to admire someone in their twenties who could learn so fast?
There are older folks that are still quick learners. But aren’t they the exceptions?
I do feel my thinking and learning ability is slowing down.
I think we all think the same as we grow older. Each stage in life is different. And we have to accept that. Thank you.