Lifestyle > Train of Thought

Why So Many Old People Are Stupid

(1/8) > >>

Matty:
by Dyske Suematsu

In Japan, seniority is a big deal. If someone is even a few years older, you are supposed to address him respectfully. That never jived with me when I was living in Japan. Do we automatically become respectable as we get older? I didn't think so, but whenever I mentioned this to adults, they would always tell me that I would understand it someday when I too am older. Well, I'm older now (37), and I can tell you that so far I haven't been proven wrong. I am beginning to be convinced that those adults were full of it.

Have you ever wondered why so many senior citizens are so stupid? Have you ever wondered why most people cannot relate to their parents when describing what they do in their lives? People often say, "But my parents would never understand that." This becomes especially problematic when the topics are highly cultural like arts, philosophy, and science. If you think about it logically, why should this be true? If your father is 60 years old and if you are 30, then you would think he would be twice as wise and knowledgeable than you are, but this is rarely the case. Even if I am not qualified to judge people older than I am, I can tell you that among the people of my own age, some of them are already getting dumber than they were before.

The most common explanation to that is that, as you get older, it becomes harder to learn new things. Well, nice excuse. Even though it is very rare, you do meet seniors who are literally twice as wise and knowledgeable. For instance, I had personally known John Cage the composer, and it was quite clear, his mind was far superior to mine. I have met or corresponded with several others too, and they are usually people who pursue something other than their jobs.

This means that while some people progressively get wiser and more knowledgeable, the vast majority of others get progressively dumber. The gap between them must be huge. For those who kept improving themselves, the rest of the people of their own age must appear completely foreign to them, like talking to teenagers. So, why does this happen? And, when does this start happening? I think it starts happening in our 30s. Why it happens is a more complicated story.

In our 20s, we are all idealistic. There is nothing wrong with idealism, except that, in our 20s, we are idealistic and naive at the same time. In other words, our heads are running far ahead of our emotions. We can deal well with logical problems in our lives, but more complex emotional problems are beyond our capacities. This starts to flip in our 30s. As we start to lose our logical capacities, our emotions continue to mature, but the problem is that emotional maturity devoid of logical intelligence is no better than having a big head and a small heart. On top of losing logical capacities, we also lose physical capacities too; so the odds are against us. Furthermore, if you have a problem with substance abuse like alcoholism, it hinders even your emotional maturity. So, all three components start to deteriorate. If you keep going in that direction for 30 years, the result is an utterly dumb, boring senior citizen.

In order to prevent this from happening, we must make a conscious effort to keep our minds and bodies in best shape possible. Our emotions will keep on maturing as long as we face our lives courageously. Even though our logical and physical capacities are decreasing, as we get wiser, we become much more efficient in learning. We no longer make obvious mistakes, and nothing we learn is entirely new. Our knowledge from other areas can expedite our learning process. These advantages can easily make up for the disadvantages, and it becomes possible to actually be twice as wise and knowledgeable as a 30 year old when we turn 60.

When I was a 7th grader, my math teacher answered an obvious but difficult question: Why do we have to study things like geometry, algebra, and trigonometry, if we are never going to use them in our adult lives? He said it is because we haven't used those parts of our brains. The same parts can do wonderful things other than geometry, algebra, and trigonometry. With this short explanation, he utterly convinced me the importance of studying math, and of any other subjects for that matter.

The same logic still applies in our old age. Any connections in our brains left unused will eventually fall apart. Seemingly unrelated and irrelevant subjects like calculus could reinforce these unused connections. The science shows that the connections we frequently use can stay strong all our lives, and the aspects of our intelligence that use those parts of our brains could stay razor-sharp even in our old age.

But all this still does not explain why some choose to improve themselves and others to let it all go down hill. I actually have no answer for that. All I can tell you is that, in our 30s, we all seem to come to some conclusions about what life is. Having reached our physical and logical heights of our lives in our late 20s, we can now see the entire mountain in perspective. We can even see the other side of that mountain (senior citizens' homes in Florida). This understanding of life is unspeakable and different for everyone. Some then decide that life is about comfort. They strive only to have a good life, eat good food, travel to exotic places, have a happy relationship, live in a comfortable house, have healthy kids, enjoy entertainment, etc.. They maintain only the parts of their brains that are necessary to maintain or increase their comfort levels, mainly the skills required for their jobs.

Others decide that there is more to life than being comfortable. They realize that a higher understanding of life is always possible, that there is in fact more to that mountain than what we see in perspective. The meaning of life, for these people, becomes sheer curiosity about life. I already see people around me splitting into these two separate paths. The longer the time passes, the more difficult it becomes to relate to those who took the other path, but we meet more new people along the way, who happen to come across your path from entirely different direction.

Now I see why those adults insisted that older people are respectable. Being concerned only with comfort, they just gave me an answer that would make them more comfortable.

ikke:
So that's why everybody starts to get married around that age.

But seriously, I always thought the cause was the lack of education of the previous generation in comparison to the next generation but the argument about how if we don't use certain parts in our brain they will decline in power really makes sense.
Not saying I'm dismissing my belief, I'm saying their both right.

Interesting read, thanks for sharing.

Matty:

--- Quote from: ikke on April 28, 2010, 09:04:51 AM ---So that's why everybody starts to get married around that age.

But seriously, I always thought the cause was the lack of education of the previous generation in comparison to the next generation but the argument about how if we don't use certain parts in our brain they will decline in power really makes sense.
Not saying I'm dismissing my belief, I'm saying their both right.

Interesting read, thanks for sharing.

--- End quote ---

np. its been something i've been pondering a lot recently. in particular, why aren't older people in general that much more knowledgable, wiser and on the ball than us young'uns. they certainly could be, or should be. conclusion - stupidity in earlier years just gets amplified and exaggerated if you don't make an active effort to better yourself and stay sharp in the long run. old people aren't stupid because they are old, they're stupid because they let themselves become stupid or were just stupid in the first place.

TraceOneInfinite:
Matty, +1, EXCELLENT article.  

I've tried to live my life in a state of continuous growth, the path that the author has advocated for in this article.  I want to share my personal story as it relates to this article...

...In the article the author says growth and maturity stops at 30 for many people, but I would argue that I noticed a change much earlier, I noticed it right when I started high school.  

When I was in Jr. High life was always fresh, new, and exciting.  The kids a hung out with, kids in the neighborhood and at school, were always open and pushing for new ideas and creativity.  From our relationships with girls, friends, music we listened to, things we did, places we went.  Everybody was growing and maturing in exciting ways it seemed.  Whenever life got boring I could just look around and find something fresh and new out there.  It was still cool at that time to be unique.  

Then suddenly, when I reached high school and age 15 came, everything had turned on it's head, and immediately I felt uncomfortable and hated my new life.  Conformity and comfort suddenly became fashionable.  It became a huge negative in society to seek growth and maturity, or to push for new idea's and paths.  

This only got worse as I got older, as the article indicates.  My first time getting drunk was when I was 15.  I remember my friends and I would brag about drinking on the weekends, and things we did that went along with it; and it was a cool thing for a moment.  But then, I looked at guys in their 20's, and noticed they were bragging about the exact same thing, then I looked at people in their 30's and they were bragging about doing the exact same thing, and in their 40's people were into the exact same thing, and on and on.  Till I got out of highschool and the kids I grew up with were actually going to bars and hanging out with each others parents and coaches and there was really no difference in the growth, maturity, and intelligence of the 20 year old and the 30, 40, and 50 year old.

For me, I always saw life as a continuous growth process.  The things you are interested and excited about should always move forward in a continuous progression of your personal evolution.  You should always be smarter next year then the year before, you should always be wiser, finding new interests and pursuits, and so on.

I'm not saying that if you find something good you shouldn't stick with it.  You should always follow your passion.  But in following your passion there should be continuous growth in it.  

For example, you could take an artist like Eminem and I seriously loved seeing his growth from Infinite album, to SSLP, to MMLP, to Eminem Show and on into 8 Mile.  And then suddenly... it was like the dude stopped growing and on RELAPSE he became a child again.  It was very disappointing.  I just use that as an example so people can understand where I'm coming from.

Javier:
That article is a bit unfair.  We have moved towards a more post-modern society, today's old people are definitely not the same as 1920s old people.  When we're that age, it will be very different.  It's been easier to "exercise" your mind these days because there are a ton of resources out there.  Sure, some might be bullshit but at least your mind is working.  Plus, time is a huge factor in "exercising" your mind.  You have people that work every day in a hard working job, when they get home they just want to relax because they're simply just providing for the family.  They're worried about paying the bills. They're worried about their kids.  There isn't any time to be keeping your mind fresh. 

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page