Fear of getting stupider

I hope you're not like me, but if you are, then you feel like you got hit with the stupid stick.  Repeatedly. Worse, your days of youthful brain development are long over, but you've not yet reached that second brain "growth spurt" that supposedly occurs between the ages of 55 and 65. Perhaps the dumb feeling is just the cumulative effect of neurotoxins in your cola, or mercury in your daily HFCS, or glucose in your blood, or the urban environment in which you live. But you feel bastard stupidity taking over, and it's scary.

Here's what I've resolved to do about it: instead of addressing any of these causal issues directly*, I will try to find a way around my accelerated mental decrepitude; a way to "hotwire" my stalling brain, so to speak. Perhaps through repetition of positive thoughts I can forge new synaptic connections in my brain and create fresh neural networks to revivify my cognition. Have you tried that? I intend to.

I guess it would be something like meditation, but I'm going to do it while watching TV and slurping down a refillable 64oz "co-Pilot" mug of diet soda.

* Come now! Like diet and exercise instead of weight loss products, that would be far too simple.

Comments

[Interrobang]

I only felt like I got hit repeatedly with the stupid stick when I was in grad school and had to sit in classes with the PhD students, all of whom were at least eight years older than I was...

[pansypoo]

see, diet soda is your first problem.

i find continuous brain exercise helps exercise the brain. tho i could only take so much reading the egypt history in my EB.

[Sue]

I thought reading a wide variety of blogs written by intelligent though profane people was what kept your brain from turning into a dried pea. No? Then I'm in trouble.

[Steve]

Perhaps through repetition of positive thoughts I can forge new synaptic connections in my brain and create fresh neural networks to revivify my cognition. Have you tried that? I intend to.

Yes, I have tried this, and it works. Takes years, but I have changed my behaviour. Ask my wife, it has saved our marriage, I now only occasionally act like a jerk.

[joejoejoe]

One of my favorite passages in a book is from Nicholson Baker's 'The Mezzanine' where he talks about waking up from a hangover after killing a bunch of brain cells on purpose and being happy that he can barely remember who invented the sweet potato and that he was never going to be Einstein and began to focus his limited brain power on the beautiful local color all around him instead of the brain taxing heights of abstract thought.

[rickbrah]

doh!!!!!!!!

now i gets it brah.

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