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Managing My Professional Decline
12/22/19 follow up: Coffee and my Bleakness
Michael Jordan is going to play basketball again, at the age of 56! Hold that thought. Even better, the 63-year-old David Chaum is getting back into computer programming. He’ll code a better cryptocurrency…you’re still stuck on Michael Jordan, right?
I made that up about Jordan. But what about David Chaum, or any computer programmer past the age of 50. Why isn’t the prospect of applying their programming skills, at a high level, absurd?
It is to me. I’ll be 58 soon. I’ve been working with computers most of my life. When I watch my daughter, now 25 years old, code, it’s like watching Jordan play basketball. She has 17 screens open and types 120 words a minute. That used to be me.
Everything I do, weakens. The young run past me. Physically and mentally. When I look at everyone in my age group, I see that it is only by huddling together, forming committees and boards that we stay in the game. Or we rehash something and put it in a book.
Through a wide range of tests, scientists have recorded declines in most brain functions as people age. You won’t find these stories posted by your friends on Facebook. The decline is obvious looking at the historical record. Most innovations were all created by people under the age of 40.
