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The patest issue of Wired magazine is the 'Ideas Issue'; they look at probable developments in society and technology over the short and longer term. Mostly this is in the field of communications media and the exciting new avenues for sharing pictures of your cat with the world which will soon open up. I have to say I found reading all of this a bit intimidating. Just when I've come to terms with one set of technology a whole bunch more comes along and invalidates everything I've just learned. When I were a lad, I found myself thinking, we made do with two tin cans and a bit of string to talk to our friends. Kids today. Eeh. They don't know how lucky they are. Tchah!.
I then stopped myself with the awful realisation that I have finally started sounding like my dad.
It struck me, though, why teenagers always seem so okay with new technology when most of the rest of us constantly feel like we're running to keep up - it's because when you're 14 you're seeing all this for the first time, but as you age you have to forget and learn anew every couple of years or so and it's not that you cannot do it, it's that you just really can't be arsed. A new iPhone? Why care? There'll be the next gadget du jour along in a week, so why develop a skill which is soon to be obsolescent?
It's this mindset, expanded, which is what makes people get old.
The world changes, and it's really tempting to become dogmatic about it; to rail against changes rather than adapt to them. It's like a couple of years ago when I sulked and stamped my foot and said I'd not go and visit the US again because of their overly complex and prescriptive immigration rules; obviously, as an attitude on my part, this was foolish as it displayed unadaptive thought patterns. Rather than complaining about things which one cannot change, it is better to change behaviours. It's better to learn new skills, even ones of short-term use, as they make the brain forge new connections and that increase in plasticity helps delay neural degredation and the resultant dribbling and incontinence.
Anyway, this post is more of a reminder to myself than anyone else, but I'll cap it with a question: What do you complain about, when really you'd be better off just changing what you do?
I then stopped myself with the awful realisation that I have finally started sounding like my dad.
It struck me, though, why teenagers always seem so okay with new technology when most of the rest of us constantly feel like we're running to keep up - it's because when you're 14 you're seeing all this for the first time, but as you age you have to forget and learn anew every couple of years or so and it's not that you cannot do it, it's that you just really can't be arsed. A new iPhone? Why care? There'll be the next gadget du jour along in a week, so why develop a skill which is soon to be obsolescent?
It's this mindset, expanded, which is what makes people get old.
The world changes, and it's really tempting to become dogmatic about it; to rail against changes rather than adapt to them. It's like a couple of years ago when I sulked and stamped my foot and said I'd not go and visit the US again because of their overly complex and prescriptive immigration rules; obviously, as an attitude on my part, this was foolish as it displayed unadaptive thought patterns. Rather than complaining about things which one cannot change, it is better to change behaviours. It's better to learn new skills, even ones of short-term use, as they make the brain forge new connections and that increase in plasticity helps delay neural degredation and the resultant dribbling and incontinence.
Anyway, this post is more of a reminder to myself than anyone else, but I'll cap it with a question: What do you complain about, when really you'd be better off just changing what you do?
