Friday, May 15, 2009

Pics

I've realized that my blog entries seem much cooler if there's a picture attached.  Note to self.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

New Tricks


I wonder if you can really be too old to learn something new.  

Clearly, things become much more difficult the older you get - in a physical sense.  We become less flexible, we have more ticks and bad habits, and in general our bodies have tuned themselves to do the specific things they are used to doing.  And perhaps more importantly, "mature" people have less time to spend creating muscle memory.  The days of hanging out all afternoon learning how to shuffle cards are far and few between, if not gone. 

Our minds aren't that different - although I think there is more hope.

When it comes to subjects completely out of our box (like computers are for the elderly, card games are for the kid who read comics, or comics are for the kid who played football), the pathways in our brains' are very slow.  It is difficult to make connections to unrelated subjects.  But for things that are similar (the avid reader learning to write poetry, the soccer player learning tennis, or, in my case, the pianist learning guitar), there are distinct possibilities.  

Unfortunately, however, our minds are more like muscles than we would like to think - practice is the only way to make any information come quickly (which is the sign that something has truly been learned).

This of course is just a very small part of the discussion.  But, for me it's a start.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Success

"There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way."  - Anonymous