BETTER LEARN IT NOW

Learn all you can in as many fields as possible while you are still young!!!    

When you get to my age you will remember a great deal of what you learned up until about 55, but you won't remember what you read yesterday.   I used to see a fact in a book and it immediately became a part of me, sticking like slime for years.   But now, I see something, hear something, read something, even do something and it is gone the next day.   It makes perfectly good sense and I understand it at the moment, but later?  

The other day a journalist told me that another anthropologist told her I am a walking encyclopedia on Waorani.  If she only knew that the print in the encyclopedia is getting blurred and some of the pages are even falling out!  All that is really intact is the title on the well-worn cover that others see.

Then there is  motivation.  Everybody I talk to who is my age complains about not being motivated to do much.   Hence, the rocking chair image of old folks.   I ain't there too severely yet, but it is creeping in.  I really noticed this in a friend the other day .  He used to be sharp as a razor, challenging everything.  Now he just sort of floats along.  Of course, mellowing with age has a lot to do with it.  You realize that being right all the time isn't that important and that it is ok for others to be dead wrong.  No point in letting them know it.  (except, of course, your wife...)  

Motivation is one reason I don't want to retire for awhile;  I need the challenge mentally and emotionally to keep me from becoming too old too soon.   Friends my age or older say if they don't work, they just want to sit in a chair and read or watch TV, even sleep.   Glad I hate TV.    I keep forcing myself to learn new things for this very reason.    Every winter I try to take on a new project that will push me to my limits intellectually.  Last winter it was the archaeology of Peru.  (Great, I immersed myself in it and today couldn't even tell you where Peru is.)   Two winters ago it was learning to make furniture (the desk), but can't seem to finish Kathie's section even though the wood has been setting in the basement 6 months.  (I'm letting it cure?)   Forcing myself to learn is  a big part of  learning Photoshop, which is a  big challenge mentally, but also has a payoff for the ranch and our advertising.   Best part of this project - at my age I will probably get to learn it two or three times.

Damn, I hate this gettin' old part.   Everything is harder.