Originally Posted By: d00df00d
Oddly, the reality is something like the opposite: as you get older, a lot of your brain becomes LESS active because you have such a big repertoire of automatic responses that you almost never have to think. That actually has been suggested as a reason why elderly people in Western countries (particularly the US) have such a big problem with neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer's, Lou Gherig's disease, etc.), whereas elderly people in third-world countries do not.
Some of what the older generation does (e.g. basic math, street smarts) is impressive to us. I guarantee you that there is a LOT that we do (use of technology, speed of visual processing, multitasking) that impresses them just as much.
Well stated. Also why people become more resistant to change as they grow older, and tend to have much more trouble adapting to it (the two go hand in hand).
My two surviving grand parents, both into their 90s, have dementia. My Grandfather I've watched it run its downward course over the past several years, to the point where he no longer knows me (my last visit being the first exception I've seen in the last few years, where I brought my mom out to see them while she was here visiting; the recognition didn't come immediately, but eventually it did).
My Grandmother on the other side made it to the age of 88, but spent the last several years of her life suffering the effects of the same thing, until it reached a point where she no longer could even communicate, and died shortly after.
Prior to that setting in, though, I treasured hearing the stories from them, as I would get to hear a first hand account of the many tremendous changes they bore witness to over their lifetimes. My two surviving grand parents were already married and had their first kids before we were even part of Canada (prior to 1949 we were still a British colony, being the last province to join confederation).
I have tremendous respect for the elderly because they survived times far harsher than our own, witnessed first hand so many changes in their lifetimes, and are treasure troves of information that they can recount in the kind of vivid, interactive, format that is naturally absent in historical texts.
Its a crime that they, who put in place through their efforts and tax dollars, are reduced to poverty in their golden years and so marginalized by a society that takes so much for granted today only because it has the luxury to do so because they provided for them the same institutions that have since been corrupted and turned against them.
This was a topic mom and I discussed on the drive back from that visit (she's a nurse who began her nursing career, and worked for decades, at a nursing home for seniors), that left us both feeling morose at this sad state of affairs in supposedly civilized society.
-Spyder
