The Book of Ashes

The problem with old age is motivation... 10:22PM

I think its true. When you're young you want to try everything out. You like moving flat, moving town, meeting new people and flatting. Once you're older you don't like these things so much. If you went travelling overseas you would rent a room rather than sleep at a backpackers or on the train as you travel. You'll flat with 1 or no people rather than 4. You'll spend your weekends doing your own things rather than racing round catching up with friends and parties, you'll not be so tempted to learn new things, rather you'll stick to what you know. Its a fact.

If we look at this a little closer to try to figure out why younger people are like this and older people are not, there doesn't seem any easy answer. I'm still fit and healthy, I can run around, I just don't enjoy it as much. I reckon its to do with my brain chemistry. My brain is no longer relasing reward drugs as much when I learn new things. I'm past the adolescence stage and no longer need to be cramming my brain with new information. I'm not being rewarded for finding new situations like once I was.

Is this part of my brain wearing out? Is it no longer producing as much dopamine as it used to as I get older? I think probably not. More likely the body has a chemical trigger that fires some time after puberty is fully finished (like around 20-25?) that dampens this effect. Thats my ideas anyway.

The problem with old age is motivation. You no longer are motivated to find new situations. You see a new situation and your brain doesn't release the excitement drugs it once did. And if you pursue that new situation it isn't as good as it once was.

Then again it may have something to do with possessing a more mature mind. I mean when you revisit a 20 yr olds party its pretty immature and not as exciting as it once was. People sit around saying stupid stuff, get really wasted and vandalise things or vomit every where. Where is the stimulation in that?

BTW I quit work :P

Ideas... 10:31PM

have two many ideas rattling around in my head right now (yes the two was on purpose). I want to be a consultant for designing online banking software. I have a lot of ideas about that. A lot. Then I want to design and create IDE's. Lots of them. I also have lots of ideas about that. Problem is its hard to convience people to hire you based on no experience in that area and some pretty dreamin ideas...

I've also been thinking about how our country (or worlds) talent is going to waste. Theres some pretty damn smart people around me and they're only a small percentage of the population. Statistically theres a good chance I won't ever meet the smartest people in New Zealand. And what are these brillant people doing? Researching new technology for their country? Designing solutions to the car polution problem? Theorising about new particles? Not likely! More likley they are designing computer databases that will be replaced in 5 years time, managing groups of people that keep a company ticking over or filing away the paper work. In 20 years their work, their genius will be irrelevant, wasted. No one will remember what they did except themselves. What a waste of talent. Imagine what NZ could do if all the smart people got together and worked on new technologies. We could cain the world at anything. Why are we business based? In the medium to long term it is so meaningless....

I felt the earthquake this morning. 6:31am it woke me up, sat up, ready to bolt for the doorway. Just a little shake and rattle of the blinds. We've had a lot recently. We await the big one. If the web site is down for any length of time you'll know why...