Synaptic pruning
Every time I hear people talk about not being able to learn new skills later in life or wishing that they were young (or that they are jealous of me for being young, which I hear a lot at Jiu Jitsu), I think of three things:
1. “Yeah, I’m aware that less synaptogenesis happens later in life, and that skills not learned early on are difficult, if not impossible, to gain later.”
2. “If they’re this old now, it means that they grew up during the pre-internet era (~10,000 BC - 1999 AD, which I refer to as ‘the Dark Ages’) - so they’re not used to receiving as much information as I am, meaning that they’re probably pretty bad at updating their beliefs, learning things, and thinking independently.”
3. “Both Erdos and Feynman did research (and hence, they learned things) until the day they died, so fuck off - I don’t want to hear your excuses for being mediocre.”
