I wonder how much of the "age-related" decline is due to the brain functioning on autopilot. After over 5 decades, I have experienced most of the issues I'm going to experience in life. More often than not, I'm addressing issues with mental playbooks based on past experience.
As I get older (now in my 50s), I find myself reflecting on how many aspects of my life and decisions are operating on autopilot. I figure it's worse now with social media where people are constantly bombarded with dopamine hits, while boredom and idle thoughts have largely become things of the past.
Perhaps counterintuitively, I am trying to break this pattern and consciously engage with my experiences by asking a few basic questions, such as:
- What am I seeing here?
- What's going on?
- What am I missing?
- How can I approach this differently to achieve the same or better outcomes?
Additionally, I am making a concerted effort to notice more new details during routine tasks, like commuting or shopping. I can't count how many times I've discovered something new and interesting on my work commutes. Actually, I can: it's every time.
Edit: Also spending more time with long-form content over short-form, be it reading or watching videos. It forces me to consider a topic for a much longer period. Short form knowledge is a trap, unless you have some system that hits you with high rates of repetition (eg Anki).
In my humblest of opinions, you are probably spot on about the autopilot vs. actually experiencing things.
As a concrete example, someone in this thread mentioned their older relative spending a lot of time with puzzles daily. I too watched my grandpa doing sudokus and crosswords, but in the end if there’s nothing much else, those too will quickly become uninspiring routine.
I really believe truly experiencing life does require some introspection so that you have agency.
And agreed, at one time I really got into Sudoku and Minesweeper, but my nerd mind quickly turned them into brainless pattern matching routines that required effectively no thinking. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate those abilities, but there's a time and place.
I'm still in my 30s, but I wonder how much mental decline is actually due to physical decline. I notice I feel more sluggish, sleepy, less sharp and motivated during periods when I'm more sedentary. And while exercise is tiring, I feel it gradually improves not only physical stamina, but mental stamina as well. Clearly a large part of our brain power is spent controlling our bodies, for when a stroke happens, becoming paralyzed in an area of your body can result. And clearly our body caters to our brains needs (e.g. nutrition), so if the body declines, then it shouldn't be surprising to see mental capabilities decline as well.
I bet you can even accomplish some of this retroactively with the right group of friends. The question "What did you do this weekend?" can be answered in so many levels of detail.
>Additionally, I am making a concerted effort to notice more new details during routine tasks, like commuting or shopping. I can't count how many times I've discovered something new and interesting on my work commutes. Actually, I can: it's every time.
This is one of the underrated pleasures of commuting by bicycle. You aren't abstracted away from the world in a bubble of steel and glass. You see, hear, feel, countless little details, and you can reach out and touch them if you want. Potholes, pedestrians, birds, the wind and rain and sun, smells of food and flowers and weird chemicals, street music and overheard fragments of conversation. Millions of faces.
For me. I started making enough money that all my old routines stopped being relevant. I started to drift into comforts and lost touch with my surroundings.
As I get older (now in my 50s), I find myself reflecting on how many aspects of my life and decisions are operating on autopilot. I figure it's worse now with social media where people are constantly bombarded with dopamine hits, while boredom and idle thoughts have largely become things of the past.
Perhaps counterintuitively, I am trying to break this pattern and consciously engage with my experiences by asking a few basic questions, such as:
- What am I seeing here?
- What's going on?
- What am I missing?
- How can I approach this differently to achieve the same or better outcomes?
Additionally, I am making a concerted effort to notice more new details during routine tasks, like commuting or shopping. I can't count how many times I've discovered something new and interesting on my work commutes. Actually, I can: it's every time.
Edit: Also spending more time with long-form content over short-form, be it reading or watching videos. It forces me to consider a topic for a much longer period. Short form knowledge is a trap, unless you have some system that hits you with high rates of repetition (eg Anki).