Tuesday, December 2

one thing that gets better with age

I heard someone on the radio explaining about the development of different areas of the brain during a lifetime. Apparently from puberty to age 25 or so, humans lack the areas involved in reflecting, empathising, and projecting backward and forward in time. If you know any people of that age, you’ll know it’s true.

Conversely, these are the very brain areas that can blossom late in life, if they are used and developed.

The late flowering of the ability to project forward in time might explain why effective politicians are not generally young. So it might not be just that the spoilsport oldies hog the top positions to keep the brilliant youngsters from changing things.

Similarly, the ability to project backward in time explains why so many people, when they reach about 55, want to write their life story. Maybe I should blog my own memoirs, though I would need a separate blog for describing some of the more depraved thoughts and deeds.

I’m not interested in wielding political or professional power, but it might still be wise to develop the part of my brain involved in foresight and the future. If only I could mentally project some future depravity, that would balance the past. I could ask a meditator how to do visualisation.

7 comments:

  1. Albert?My brain has not been developing at all. I just can't be bothered anymore with learning how to work things or manuals, etc. But I'd like to know how to heat a cup of old coffee in a microwave. Do you have to cover it up? Hotboy

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  2. hotters, cover it if you don't want to splatter the inside of the oven, but if you have good domestic staff that may not be a concern. Better still, switch to herb tea and you won't need to meditate to balance the caffeine.

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  3. PS - you could use a saucer, that's what i do. And when reheating e.g. a bowl of soup, cover it with a plate.

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  4. Albert? We had to get modern last Xmas when the cooker failed, but I haven't used the microwave thing (do they leak microwaves? Do they fry your brain? Is there a safe dose?), but I could sometimes heat up a coffee if I knew how. Hurrah! Hotboy

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  5. So there's one brain-frying technique you haven't tried yet. Putting your head inside would help, but there's a cut-out switch on the door. For the usual fee I can disable it for you.

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  6. I say!

    I don't think Hotters needs to worry about brain frying. It's surely done to quite a crisp already.

    MM III

    P.S. A very profound post, by the way.

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