The learning phase. I hope.

[elfs]

I've had this weird sensation all week. My brain has been dreadfully quiet. No new outputs have occurred to me-- no new stories, no new software development spikes have suggested themselves to me.

This is probably because I have been mainlining two major classes: One in genetics and bioinformatics, the other in functional programming with Haskell. It's day four, and I'm on chapter 6 of my Bioinformatics textbook, and chapter four of Real World Haskell. I'm not sure which one is harder: the bioinformatics one has a metric donkeyload of new terminology, but the Haskell one actually requires that I grow new braincells. I hope my brain is up for that. At 45, there's always some doubt, ne? My brain is waiting to turn this knowledge into utility. That may take a while.

Comments

45 is a fine wine, starting to mellow

[shunra.livejournal.com]

I have known people be as sharp, vivid, and creative into their nineties as they were in their youth (comparing products, ability to learn, understand, and memorize, and being able to communicate all of the above to people of differing ages and abilities.)

I've had the privilege of watching septugenerians learn new-to-them languages; of seeing a woman start a career in her fifties, bust through several glass ceilings (pun intended), change over, become a whole different thing, and still be going strong in her mid-nineties. I've watched people adapt to computers (as users, planners, designers) in their twilight years, and personally infected more than one of these with Tetris. In the eighties.

There are dysfunctions that impair a brain's (a person's!) ability to learn & create. Age - as such - is not one of them.

Re: 45 is a fine wine, starting to mellow

[shunra.livejournal.com]

(speaking of brain dysfunctions: I can too spell septuagenarians, evidence above notwithstanding.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

We do not lose the ability to learn & remember things as we move into our 40's and older. We just can't do them as well as we could when we were 20.

It merely takes more effort to stuff that extra knowledge into are increasingly-crowded brains. ^_^

[stellatangdele.livejournal.com]

I've heard that exercise helps grow more brain cells, even in us mature people.