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Okay, here's my $.02. I'm 55 and re-teaching myself Scheme (25 years ago, I edited the BYTE Magazine special issue on Lisp, and I just discovered that an excerpt from my review of The Little Schemer is now quoted on its back cover). I'm in the late stages of my training to be a marriage and family therapist (second MA at age 53), and I have an open-source project that I fiddle with (infoml.org). So what's my take on things? Consciousnesses is far from binary; sometimes I think it's the most finely nuanced thing in the universe (read The Head Trip, by Jeff Warren). Speed of thought decreases--you got that right--but I've now got decades of experiences behind me, and these lead to thoughts I never could have imagined when I was 25. Unfortunately, it's not true that "quality of thought won't diminish"--my father died with dementia at 85, and it certainly changed the last 20 years of his life. Change is the only constant in life, by the way, and flexibility and openness are your greatest assets in dealing with it. As you grow older, meaningful connections to others, humble achievements (helping others at a personal level), and balance in all things become more important than power, money, and sexual conquest. I feel I'm far more creative than I was 20 years ago, but my desire to sacrifice balance for achievement has diminished; at this stage of my life, different things (as described above) are more important to me. Some parts of getting older truly suck, but I am a lot happier and calmer that I used to be. I really know who I am now, and I can no longer be jerked around by what other people think. It's a great ride, and if you take care of yourself along the way (mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually), it can be quite worthwhile. Good luck to you all doing whatever you're passionate about! |