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Originally Posted by Maven
I feel I'm very much like you described. I have thought of it, in my case, of "becoming like my mother." I don't know if she's always been this way; well, to a degree, she has, but we see our parents differently as children, and as teenagers, and as young adults, and older adults. But my mom is not that intelligent. I don't mean to sound harsh, but she doesn't get many concepts, even some simple ones. She can't pronounce words that she "should" be able to say. I mean, she calls Kmart "Kmark" and Walmart "Walmark." She calls petite "peteek." She can pronounce "eat" but always seem to put a "k" at the end of some words that end in "t".
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I think most of us do end up becoming more intelligent than our parents and there is always that awkward point where we surpass them and notice it. Neither of my parents finished high school, whereas I have a bachelors, masters and a research qualification and am now starting a PhD, so I'm kind of stuck by myself intellectually in terms of my family as I can't be guided by either of my parents in that department.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maven
I just turned 45 less than two weeks ago, and I just feel like I'm much less intelligent than I used to be. I can admit that most of it is probably because I haven't used what I learned, and I also get easily frustrated. My pdoc said I have ADD.
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I've often wondered whether my intellectual malaise could be a result of me not spending as much time learning/engaging my brain as I should be, although I have been in education every year of my life since I was about 5 years old.
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Originally Posted by Maven
I read things without absorbing them, as you described. My eyes fly over the words, but I'll be halfway down the page before realizing I have no idea what I just read. Sometimes it's because my mind wanders, and sometimes, I might describe it as the "brain fog" you mentioned.
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I know that all too well and it really causes problems when you're required to learn something or have time constraints. My reading WPM is probably around 100 or so because I can't stick to reading quickly and force myself to understand every word, often having to re-read sentences. I am capable of reading at 800-900 WPM, but I can't keep it up because my brain just cuts out most of the time.
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Originally Posted by Maven
I long to learn things, but don't have the patience.
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In other words, you want to learn, but you consider the commitment too great and weigh up whether it's worth spending that much time on one single thing. Consequently, you procrastinate and end up doing pretty much nothing instead, at least that's how it works in my case.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maven
I feel like getting older is putting me out of the running for anything I want to do. Our society loves the young, but as you get older, opportunities are few.
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That depends on how much experience you have in a given field and how much you're willing to apply yourself in a given vocation. One of the things I noticed in my bachelors (where I saw a fair few people over 30) was that the young students were always reckless, frivolous and most had little dedication or drive, whereas the older individuals always had more determination coupled with an eagerness to learn.