What New Subjects and Tasks Am I Capable of Learning at Age 73 in 2025?

by James Wallace Harris, 9/16/24

I know I’m an old dog in a long slow mental and physical decline due to aging, but I wonder if I can still learn new tricks. I’m already having trouble recalling names and nouns, but if I work at it, I eventually fish those missing words out the darkness of my unconscious mind. I pursue the same daily activities I’ve always pursued, but I wonder if could learn to do something new. Maybe if I work hard at digging a new rut it would become a new daily activity.

My friend Mary Ann mentioned she must memorize the details for two hundred works of art for her M.A. in art history. I asked her for that list, and I’m trying to learn it too. I’m gathering digital images of all the works and putting their details into a spreadsheet. I’m trying to figure out how to systematically study the content and then test myself. I hope this might be an effective way of calculating how much I can still learn and retain.

I’ve been trying to use Linux as my regular computer system. I discovered Linux back in the early 1990s on Usenet News. Every so often I install it and see if I can do all my computer work on it. It’s always failed me. This past year I realized that Linux has gotten so good as a desktop replacement that I might be able to finally switch. However, yesterday I hit another wall and gave up. I realized that if I got deep into the way Linux worked at the command line level, I could probably solve my latest problems. I’m having trouble getting my scanner to work, but also, when I tried to move my Plex server from Windows to Jellyfin on Linux I hit a snag that annoyed me so much I packed away my Linux box.

A year ago, I tried to set up Plex on Linux, but Plex never could see my media files. That was probably a permission problem. I then tried Plex on Windows, and I was watching TV shows on my Roku streamer in about ten minutes. I can get things done on Windows in a snap, but it’s always hours of aggravation using Linux. I wondered if it’s a cognitive learning barrier, or laziness, or impatience? I just don’t have what it takes anymore. I decided not to waste time butting my head against a wall.

But that experience made me question myself: Am I capable of learning something new? I keep trying and I keep failing. Should I just accept that? Am I not trying hard enough? One thing about getting older is having less energy. It makes me throw in the towel quicker. That makes me wonder if the problem is being able to stick with something or is it an actual mental barrier that I can’t cross. I don’t know.

Right now, I’m still positive. I like to think if I stuck with a task, no matter how slowly, or for however many days it might take, I could eventually get the job done. Sure, it might take weeks longer because I might only be able to work at my goal twenty-minutes at day instead of hours a day. Or am I kidding myself?

Do we quit learning as we get older because we don’t have the brain cells, or the patience, or the energy, or the focus? (Or combination of all of them.) It’s getting hard to even write these essays. I run out of steam so quickly. Applying my brain at almost anything now makes me want to go take a nap. The trouble is coming back. Sometimes I can pick up where I left off and sometimes I can’t. My drafts folder currently has 152 unfinished attempts since I last deleted it.

The thing about getting old is we know it ends badly. We must triage our desires, and jettison more wants. I still have a lengthy list of things I want to do or learn, but I’m having to cross many of them off my list because I know I can no longer do them.

I keep thinking if I exercise more, eat better, sleep wisely, that I might squeeze a few more ergs of psychic energy into a project. Every day I get up and do the Wordle, The Mini, Connections, and the Sudoku in the New York Times game app on my iPhone. I’m thinking about adding Strands and The Spelling Bee. I have gotten better at all of these games. That encourages me. But they are little efforts. Playing these games is one way I test my mind each morning, like taking my blood pressure.

I need a bigger challenge to track and measure the remaining potential of my brain. I’ve thought about taking the GRE test and then study its subjects and taking the test again every few years to see what happens. But time might have run out on that plan.

I used to think of studying Python or C++ to see how far I get, but that might be too ambitious too. Studying Art History might be possible. I wish I could get into chess. Whenever I try, I immediately hit a wall. I figure it’s a matter of focus. I keep thinking I should try to increase the amount of time studying a chess move so eventually I could play a whole game. I’ve never been able to think about a move for longer than a minute before I get completely bored. I’ve wondered if I could increase that concentration up to two or three minutes if that would help me finish a game, and that skill would crossover in other things I want to do?

I watch YouTube videos by physical therapists, and they always talk about starting slow and doing a little bit more each day. That’s very inspirational. The trouble is even starting slow anymore.

But I haven’t given up.

This reminds me of an old Vaughn Bodē underground comic. It featured a little lizard-like creature. In my memory it showed the creature tied to a post, with its eyes poked out, its arms and legs cut off, whispering to a fellow prisoner, “I’ze gonna escape when it gets dark.” Am I that little creature? (I wish I had a copy of that cartoon strip. If you have it please send me a copy.)

JWH