I will learn something new only if doing so will materially improve my life. I got the DVR primarily to record curling tournaments and watch them at my leisure (a typical tournament involves 22 telecasts over a 9 day period and that is simply too much straight up). I don’t know if my DVR has a search function (the documentation is simply dreadful), but I have learned how to pause, replay, etc. Sometimes, without scheduling a recording, I will simply start a program and do something else, then come back, rewind, and watch it, fast forwarding through the commercials. If there are other functions, I haven’t found them. There are buttons in the remote I haven’t any idea what they are for.
My wife learned how to pay bills online, so she pays all the bills. I have learned to make plane reservations, get boarding passes etc, so I always do that. I have learned the tax software so I do our four returns (one each provincial and federal). I have never used word. It is not very good for writing mathematics in and I am very happy with a good editor and latex. Why should I use word?
So basically I agree with Broomstick. Although I love squid.
I think we’ve got a mixture of apples and oranges here. When it comes to things I have a curiosity about them and I enjoy learning about them but ----- I really have little interest in making them as big a part of my life as younger people seem to. I have a certain comfort with some things; my old typewriter and fountain pens, my old landline phone, my manual transmission vehicles. And I enjoy that comfort. If different “newer” things give you comfort, all blessings to you. Its one of those signs of getting older most of us catch - and you probably will as well.
Now the opposite is sometimes the case when we turn the discussion from things to ideas. A lot of old people would surprise you in how curious they are about those. They may not change their opinions but in my experience they at least have a certain curiosity about how younger people think and feel. Its the biggest change I’ve seen in myself as I’ve gotten older. Way back when the other side (pick a topic, any topic) was just wrong and the people “there” were just idiots. To paraphrase an old saying about parents slightly, “it’s surprising how much smarter they’ve gotten over the years”.
I think everybody thus far has touched about every aspect
For me, I still keep an ear out there in terms of news or new music or new ~whatever~ but I do find myself being less curious about it than I was, say in my 20s or 30s. My reason is simply energy. I no longer possess that desire to TAKE OVER THE WORLD or KNOW EVERYTHING (I capitalize both because that’s how naturally fired up I was about EVERYTHING back then). I had to DO EVERYTHING and EXPERIENCE EVERYTHING and to the extent I could do both, I did.
I no longer have that kind of energy because most of that energy was, and still is, dedicated to my job. I think back to, say, 20-25 years ago when I used to either have a second job on my days off from my primary job or I volunteered somewhere because I was so insatiable about KNOWING EVERYTHING and I didn’t want to be like my relatives who basically passed into their senior years primarily watching TV and never going anywhere. I can’t even fathom taking a second job or volunteering now. I’m lucky I have enough energy to make dinner and walk the dogs before going to bed!
I’ve got a ton of online friends in their 30s who have the similar kind of energy/drive I had back then. Reading about their experiences exhausts me!
You brought up exactly what I was going to ask. To me, curiosity is for what’s new to you. Yes, new inventions and tech are part of that, but so are things that have been around for thousands of years. So.many.things fascinate me, whether it’s things that all of humanity are seeing for the first time or buried treasures that have been hidden in the mists of time. Like stillownedbysetters my greatest regret is knowing that there’s no possible way that I’ll be able to live long enough to learn about all the things I want to. I’m probably worrying about that WAY ahead of schedule (I’m an older Millennial), but it could happen by a freak accident tomorrow instead of by old age. Damn mortality.
A wise man I won’t name once said, “It’s amazing how much ‘mature wisdom’ resembles being too tired.”
I’ve also heard it expressed as “youth lives in the future, adults live in the present, old age lives in the past” - and I think there’s a certain rough truth in that. in addition to all the insightful things already said, maybe we just reach a point where we have enough ‘past’ to occupy our thoughts and opinions, and don’t need to keep adding to that store.
What about people who can’t seem to grasp the difference between **ITS **and IT’S?
At 66, my most salient personality trait is still curiosity, as it has been since I was a toddler. But, as some have said, I no longer feel the drive to know everything about everything. My attention isn’t caught by every glittery thing that wanders into my field of vision. I love new gadgets, especially techie gadgets, but I’m capable of evaluating whether they will actually add utility to my life. Same with social media. I use oh-so-sparingly, and for my own purposes. I can let trends pass me by if I don’t find my curiosity piqued by them. I have a lot less of that thing called FOMO* than I did when I was younger.
Back in the early '80s I was “the computer guy” in my office, and we were so cutting edge, vendors came to US to see how we did things. But at 63, I find there’s a diminishing return on investment in my learning new technology.
That doesn’t mean I have no interest in learning new things, however. Since I’ve retired I’ve had time to learn more about things I was interested in, but never had the chance to really study. I’m not so wedded to nostalgia that I wouldn’t read Harper Lee’s new book because it might damage my image of Atticus. I even check my smartphone now and then.
But do I regularly check the app store to see what I’m missing? Nah. First, I’ll decide if I’m missing something, THEN I’ll look for a gadget for it.
Thinking more on this topic, I think part of it is that I am better able to focus and direct my efforts and energy efficiently. Which is a good thing, because I have less energy and stamina than when I was half my current age. When you’re young you can scatter-shot your interests because you have a lot of energy. When you get older you learn to conserve your energy for your top priorities.
Which is another thing - as you get older your priorities change. When you’re young you might be more interested in social things, social climbing, keeping up with other people. At a certain point a lot (not all) people find a comfortable level of stuff, social status, and so forth and focus more on enjoying what they have rather than acquiring more.
When children happen the focus often changes more to taking care of them then pursuing the latest trends and gadgets. When the kids are out of the house your focus often changes again.
I am still intensely curious about many things, I still try new things (hell, just started a potential new career last year in a field in which I had nearly no prior experience), but I don’t try everything. It gets back to knowing myself and my interests better than when I was 20. I’ve figured out what really matters to me in life, rather than still be in a stage of working that out.
Without echoing Martian Bigfoot, you seem to have had a very different childhood than I did. Maybe teachers wouldn’t come down on you for looking stupid, but your peers could be counted on to fill the void.
OTOH, what I have is an awareness that I’ve appeared stupid thousands of times in my life, and it hasn’t proved fatal yet. I’m far less afraid to fall on my face now, in my early 60s, than I was when I was in my 20s, let alone when I was a teen or in elementary school.
An interesting theory, but I am going to say you are 100% wrong about older people being afraid of looking stupid. One of the qualities that aging provides is that more and more you really really REALLY don’t care what other people think about you.
I would also add that IMHO curiosity and learning new skills is a skill in and of itself. It requires practice and regular engagement of the curiosity / learning process. For a number of people, the job they have does not provide variety and new things, and life demands get in the way. Kids, mortgage payments, time to mow the lawn, time to fix dinner, it’s Christmas already again?
Before you know it, 20 years have passed and you haven’t exercised your curiosity / learning muscles. It all atrophies.
In a thread about being old (and thus crotchety), I think I’m entitled to ask, “What is it about people that they can’t allow a single typo or grammatical error to go by without pointing them out in the most obnoxious way possible?” Is there some “being annoying on the internet” contest that I’m missing out on?
I don’t bother with typos, especially in the era of auto-correct. But this particular grammatical error is one that I’m particularly crotchety about. That’s what it is about this particular person. I don’t know about others.
It’s probably the single easiest grammatical rule to test and apply. “Does ‘it is’ work?” Yes/no. No exceptions. Even if someone can’t retain the rule, they can apply this test in a fraction of a second.
At this point in life I would really rather learn about an awesome new cheese than some shitty app or appliance that will be laughably obsolete in 9 months. I’ve seen enough of them come and go. OK, you got me on Evernote, now bugger off and leave me to my peaceful decline.
So true. Intuitively, you think “it’s” is going to be the possessive because possessives have apostrophes. But not this time. As you point out, “it’s” is a contraction, not a possessive.
I don’t disagree, but it was also awesome when Alvin Toffler wrote a whole book about it and called it Future Shock.
I rank FS and the sequel, The Third Wave, as some of the most insightful books of a truly insightful era. Toffler was right in that the speed of change has accelerated to something many people have trouble coping with, and it’s a cause of a lot of sociological and psychological ‘ripples.’
As I’m 62, for myself, I need to know exactly what the benefit improvement is before I’ll embrace new technology. I do NOT agree to change, for changes sake. A case in point, recently, my PVR crapped out and I contacted the cable company for a new one. They installed a new one and wow, talk about a nifty “space aged” menu. However, it couldn’t do a bunch of things that the old one did, including (get this) being able to set the recording timer with custom times or adding a minute or two to the beginning and end of series recordings. If a show was “out” by a minute or two on the beginning or end, it got cut off.
When I phoned the cable company back, I asked the techie how to set that. He advised me you can’t do that. I told him that the very first VCR’s could do that 35 years ago, why not this new gadget? He said (get this) if you cannot get the whole show it’s the networks fault. I advised him that he either finds me a PVR that will allow custom recordings or I will find a different cable company that can supply such a machine. Guess what, he “magically” had a “modern” but “older model” PVR for me and made the swap.
To me, curiosity is for what’s new to you. Yes, new inventions and tech are part of that, but so are things that have been around for thousands of years. So.many.things fascinate me, whether it’s things that all of humanity are seeing for the first time or buried treasures that have been hidden in the mists of time. Like stillownedbysetters my greatest regret is knowing that there’s no possible way that I’ll be able to live long enough to learn about all the things I want to. I’m probably worrying about that WAY ahead of schedule (I’m an older Millennial), but it could happen by a freak accident tomorrow instead of by old age. Damn mortality. 