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How is your brain?

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Mudcat

Mudcat

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I think mine is deteriorating. Sometimes it seems like I have either late onset ADD or premature Alzheimers.

I am joking around a bit but not completely.

My attention span is nothing like it it once was. Reading used to be a huge part of my life but I haven't read a whole book in years. Even when I see a post on the forum of more than a paragraph, it feels like a bit of a mountain to climb.

And my brain works tangibly slower. I know this because I am trivia guy. My whole life people expect me to know stuff - because I always have - but in the last couple years, I have to stop and think about things I would have known right away.

I also notice the effect when I type. I will reread long sentences and find that I have completely left out words or bunches of letters - or substituted words that don't make sense. And it's like, what was my brain doing there? It is hard to describe but the point is, it is a fairly new effect.



Perhaps this is to be expected. I am getting older. I think the way I make my living also contributes to the reduced attention span. Hell, a reduced attention span is a signature of our times. Maybe I am just conforming to the norm.

I don't know. Just having a bit of a ramble.



Do you like your brain?
 
My brain's pretty high right now, but I'll trade a little mental acuity for chemically-induced happiness any day of the week.

I think you're worrying too much about it, Muddy. With the knowledge base that permeates our existence through the Internutty, our brains are re-prioritizing their information storage and retrieval pathways to facilitate more procedural knowledge and less factual knowledge. We know we can access any necessary facts within minutes of needing them, but the cumulative knowledge that accumulates through repetition of a process is now invaluable to us. We're evolving now in ways that we are sufficiently self-aware to experience and I agree that it's very disconcerting.

I know exactly what you're talking about when you mention proofing your own writing to occasionally encounter gibberish and having a reduced attention span, but I chalk those up to evolution. We are a product of our environment, and you have to marvel at just how radically we've altered our daily existence compared to 100 years ago. We travel, communicate, labor and live in ways that resemble nothing of the often agonizing existence which has marked human life since prehistory. The greatest minds among us are no longer those who have accumulated the most facts, but those who have learned to systematize complex tasks and thought processes.

You've got wisdom and insight in abundance, Mudcat. I think you should celebrate more how much you know and lament less the exclusion of some of your trivia for the subtle genius you evidence with words and music.
 
Thank you. That was what I needed to hear.

Part of my moping may be because I did poorly on the Jeopardy exam a month or so back. I had taken it 3 times over the years and aced it every time - but this time I am positive I failed.

It is a dopey thing but I was counting on being eligible for Jeopardy for another year but now I'm not and I find it to be a bummer.
 
Mudcat
I think mine is deteriorating. Sometimes it seems like I have either late onset ADD or premature Alzheimers.

I am joking around a bit but not completely.

My attention span is nothing like it it once was. Reading used to be a huge part of my life but I haven't read a whole book in years. Even when I see a post on the forum of more than a paragraph, it feels like a bit of a mountain to climb.

And my brain works tangibly slower. I know this because I am trivia guy. My whole life people expect me to know stuff - because I always have - but in the last couple years, I have to stop and think about things I would have known right away.

I also notice the effect when I type. I will reread long sentences and find that I have completely left out words or bunches of letters - or substituted words that don't make sense. And it's like, what was my brain doing there? It is hard to describe but the point is, it is a fairly new effect.



Perhaps this is to be expected. I am getting older. I think the way I make my living also contributes to the reduced attention span. Hell, a reduced attention span is a signature of our times. Maybe I am just conforming to the norm.

I don't know. Just having a bit of a ramble.



Do you like your brain?
Click to expand...

I like my brain but I thought it was just me. I am running into the same kind of focus issues. Actually if I start reading no matter what it is I fall asleep. Not a good thing.
 
used to have a voracious appetite for reading,learning, listening, and debating anything and everything. after i got out of Academia and got away from it. I lasted about 3 years continuing to learn and grow on my own. over the past 5 years however, i've substituted learning and stimulation with low brow distraction. which is somthing that if is gonna happen in your life, should only happen when you are 85 and everything hurts, and nothing works on your body. and the distractions should be looking in on the lives of dozens and dozens of grand children, and great grand children
 
In the last couple years, I have started to have some issues with my eyesight. I have had perfect eyesight my whole life but things started to blur a couple years back and I got my first reading glasses - and it is a bit startling how fast it is continuing to deteriorate.

The brain issue seems parallel. I just want everything to settle down.
 
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