I've got a confession to make: I'm getting really sloooooow. I used to be fast. Fastest gun in the West. I could whack a post together in two hours, and then do it one more time the same day. But it took me two days to write that last post—knead it into shape, rewrites, percolation time, find a place for it to end up (old white folks' early-'90s hip-hop starter kit!), add a little spice to make it personable ("Pirate" as a baby girl name?!), find quotes, more rewrites, choose and add links, go hunt down a rights-free illo...slow as the proverbial molasses in January. Last night, late, I was like, finally! I'm going to get this up, took me the whole day!...and then it soaked up two more hours this morning. Two hours that just walk on by.
I'm doing the best I can. I'm just plain slowing down. It takes me longer to think of words now (memorize analyze internalize). It takes me longer to think of names that used to just flash into my brain-pan if I bid them to (Method Man; what can be so elusive about the word "method"?). Takes me longer to proofread. I type slower now. Takes me longer to do anything. I'm slower at everything. It's not that I have more to do, it's that it feels that way. Because what I have to do fills up more of the time I have available to do it. Feels like time is speeding up, but it's not. I'm just slowing down.
Just keeping you apprised of conditions! And I appreciate your patience.
That is all,
—Head Writer Mike
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Featured Comments from:
Al in Vancouver: "I feel your frustration. I turned 70 this year, and this is my single greatest challenge: progressive loss of both long-term, but more importantly, short-term memory. I began to notice this in my early 60s and found over the years since then that it made me increasingly less productive, i.e., it took longer and longer to accomplish less and less. When I was younger, I dreamed about all the things I would do in retirement. Now that I am “there,” I’m beginning to realize how little of that I will be able to do.
"Thankfully, like you, I am articulate and still have a lot to offer to the communities I am involved with. But oh, what a struggle to analyze, remember, compose, and make important decisions. Thankfully, one area this does not affect as much is photography: I still enjoy making and editing images, and is the one area in my life, where I still feel I am improving!"
Geoff Wittig: "Just a bit of cheerful contrarianism here...
"People do age, and our brains do change. Brute force short-term memory (for example, the phone numbers or lines of code you can keep in your head simultaneously) declines after age ~30, and it falls off a cliff after 60. But our capacity to recognize patterns, to integrate knowledge and draw accurate conclusions from observation, continues to improve. That's why scientists can still be highly productive into their 80s and beyond. And when it comes to artists, many create their finest work in old age. I'm currently reading Last Light: How Six Great Artists Made Old Age a Time of Triumph. This very engaging book demonstrates how artists from Titian to Hopper created their strongest work when they were...well, old.
"I take great comfort from that. I can't work all through the night and cheerfully continue working the next day like I could in my 30s and 40s. But I can figure out a difficult or obscure diagnosis better than I could back then. And my paintings keep getting better.
"I too have noted that my writing pace is slower than it used to be. But I like to think it's because my standards are higher; stuff I blithely sent out 30 years back I wouldn't dare loose on the world now.
"So don't sell yourself short, Mike. Your pungent observations and polished prose remain something we all keep coming back for."
[Geoff is a small-town doctor who has delivered the grandchildren of babies he delivered. —Ed.]
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