Dmitri wrote:Wanderingdragon wrote:Maintainence of ability without evolution of skill, is pause before stagnation.
Decline is inevitable; our cells (
all if them, from hair to skin to muscles to neurons to...) will gradually perform worse and worse. So at some point your rate of "evolution of skill" will become equal to the rate of decline of your abilities, at which point you would, mathematically, reach "stagnation". It's gonna happen to
everyone, no matter what they do or who they are. Furthermore, that trend will continue, so your skill
will decline, with time. "Maintenance" is a really good choice of words for the OP; it doesn't put emphasis on improvement, but on retaining a reasonably functional set of attributes and abilities. And, your expectations of your performance would also need to be gradually "adjusted down" with time. The trick is to try and keep
the rate of that adjustment as low as possible.
As a friend puts it, "I want to go out like a light switch, not like a dimmer".
My son commented the other day how most (healthy) old cats and dogs run around and generally appear to be fine until the very last couple of hours of their lives. I told him (healthy) old humans should be that way also. That's how my great-grandfather passed at 99 yo (I was 12), and then his daughter at 94, both in their sleep without hospitals or being pumped with drugs like they do in the modern society, and in the US specifically. He used to say "movement is life"and they both were actively living that line, every single day. (And I'm hoping I can too.)