When Can I Stop Having to Learn New Shit?

 

Brains. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. June 2016. Credit: Mzuriana.

When can I stop having to learn new shit? 

I distinctly remember thinking this thought. It was 2016, and I was in the midst of climbing an irritatingly steep and long learning curve on some new app or program that I needed to master so I could get something I wanted. (Here is the difference between an app and a program.)

I felt very resentful. 

Eventually, I moved past that petulance. I accepted that:

1. If I desired a big and rich life, 
2. I had to keep learning new shit.

To be clear: I'm not talking about learning new shit about history, geology, literature, music, dance, culture, human and civil rights, current affairs and trends, etc. I have no issues with any of this, and in fact, it is critical to my growth as a human to seek new knowledge about our world, in addition to new and diverse perspectives on such. 

No, I'm pretty much talking about new tech as it pertains to devices, processes, user interfaces (UIs), rules and policies, forms management, security/privacy management, fintech, etc. 

To learn new tech, it's not uncommon to have to unlearn stuff. And the older one is, the more stuff one must unlearn. Of course, this process can be uncomfortable. 

The necessity of paradigm shifts

1.      My first smartphone

I bought my first smart phone (an android) in 2013 or so. 

Until then, I had done just fine with my fliptop dumbphone (which is now back in fashion) because I had my laptop and internet access at home. Why did I need to be tethered to the internet when I was out and about? But eventually, I became envious of friends and family who whipped out their smart phones to look something up in the moment - or - most importantly - used their smart phones for driving instructions. 

Mastering my smart phone was a frustrating pain in the ass! Negotiating its bells and whistles seemed so counterintuitive! (It still irks me that I can only go back to a previous page on my phone and not go forward.) At least once I wanted to hurl the phone against a wall. (Emotional maturity does not necessarily come with age.)

Until. 

Until it hit me that I was approaching my android as a phone, expecting it to behave like a phone. But a smart phone is not a phone. It is a very small PC that happens to include a phone app. 

This shift in thinking changed everything for me. Of course it was going to take me time, practice, thoughtful reflection, and problem-solving to gain control over my new device. 

2.      My CPAP machine

I am in the midst of learning the ins and outs of a CPAP machine. 

When I picked it up at the durable medical supply place, the personable technician rolled through the ops quickly, congenially, and capably. She pointed to a stapled collection of papers in the carrying case that she said had step-by-step instructions to support her demonstration. 

As she pushed and turned buttons and the dial, and flipped open latches and closed little hatches, I thought, oh yeah, I've been here before. It seems so easy-peasy now, but because she is not having me actually demonstrate my understanding while I'm there, it's very likely I'm going to forget a lot of what she's saying. ...... But I was silent, thinking of that step-by-step guide I could refer to when I got home. (Spoiler alert: That step-by-step guide pertained to something else, not the machine operation. )

A second reason to have a new user run through the steps herself (to get that memory reinforcement through the physicality of it), while under the technician's eye, is to ascertain the patient understands the instructions AND has the motor dexterity to, for example: push the humidifier drawer latch in, pull the drawer out, flip the water well latch up, remove the well lid, reassemble the water well, and push the drawer back in. 

Physical conditions such as arthritis, tremors, and the lack of finger and hand strength are all potential obstacles to operating the CPAP machine for someone who is older. Furthermore, the machine requires distilled water in the humidifier well - not all older people have the strength and motor control to lift and pour water from a gallon jug, or a large bottle, or a pitcher. 

A third reason to have the patient run through the steps herself is to counterweight the natural anxiety a patient feels during the presentation (and acceptance) of managing a new:

• Device
• Routine to add to one's life, i.e. the cleaning and maintaining the machine
• Way of sleeping

And get this: 

The power button does not turn the machine off. It just starts or stops the airflow. That caused me some consternation. After poring over the user manual, I saw these two items, which are lounging casually within the other collection of text on page 6: 

Text:  Therapy on/off button: Starts and stops the airflow for therapy. 

A note from me: the icon for the "therapy button" is the universal icon for power buttons. 

Text: In a separate section on the same page, there is a note: When positioning the device, make sure that the power cable is accessible because removing power is the only way to turn off the device. 

The most important information in the above text comes at the end of this nonchalant statement. Here is how the sentence should read: 

The only way to turn off the device is to detach the power cable from the machine, so make sure the power cable is accessible. 

Text: But on page 9, #5 in a list of instructions titled Supplying AC Power, it says: 

When turn off the device Press Therapy On/Off Button and the device will stop work. [sic]

(Quality control much?) 

All this bit about the CPAP machine veers off a bit to a rant and also to geragogy, but it comes back to this: Learning how to operate and maintain a CPAP machine is new shit. New shit that I have to learn.

Below is the paradigm shift I needed to soothe my savage breast about this CPAP learning annoyance:  

Remember, MB, you've lost confidence in your usual learning skills because of this, and that is fucking with your head. But also remember that your MO in learning new technology has always been: Steady and studied:   

1. Look at the new app or the new device or the technical glitch
2. Research it
3. Run through a process of trial and error, with the confidence that you can't break it
4. Get it sorted out
5. Done, sometimes needing to retrace your steps if it's complex or you only need the device or the app occasionally, sometimes needing to write down the steps to remind you

Sometimes that self-teaching process was fast; sometimes it was slow. Sometimes I had to step away from the problem and then come back to it after minutes, hours, or even the next day to reboot my brain. 

The process (and the confidence that I couldn't "break" the device) was what set me apart from friends who - no less intelligent or educated than I - panicked at new technology. They either Pushed All the Buttons in a frenzy, creating all sorts of mayhem (but not breakage) or they threw their hands up in frozen alarm position, and called me or any nearby 12 year-old to fix it.  

Remembering this calmed me. I just had to go through the same steady steps that have served me well in the past when dealing with technical stuff. And I needed to grant myself the grace that the anxiety I feel about getting the CPAP operation right is a normal response. 

Moral of this story: I'm going to have to keep learning shit. 

Brain: When I Didn't Think About It and Now I Do

 

Brains for lunch. Kutaisi, Caucasus Georgia. February 2012. Credit: Mzuriana.

Backstory

I come from intelligent parents. My siblings and I are intelligent people.** 

No hubris here. It's just a fact, as evidenced by life-long assessments by individuals or organizations outside our nuclear family. 

Part of who I am - ever since a startling, single comment by my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Murray - is the immutable acceptance of my intelligence. 

Did I forget a person, place or thing from earlier in the day, yesterday, last week, last month, last year? Sure. Did I worry even one nanosecond about it? Nope. I didn't even think about it. There was nothing unusual about it. And, in general, did I have a good memory? Yes. As for childhood memories, I've never had the encyclopedic recollection of these that one of my sisters has. So nothing unusual for me there.  

Did I think I was immune from some sort of dementia in the future? Nope. 

My paternal grandfather, in his 80s, developed dementia (I heard), attributed (I believe) to atherosclerosis. One of my paternal aunts had a similar experience in her 80s. I don't know the extent of their dementia, i.e. mild or severe. 

My father was only 75 when he died of pulmonary hypertension and mitral valve regurgitation. It's possible that, had he lived into his 80s, he would also have developed some level of dementia. 

My mother developed dementia at some point in her 80s. (She died at age 91.) It was gradual, and it eventually forced her to let go of:

• Work activities she had heretofore relished, 
• Driving, 
• Playing computer games, 
• Web surfing, 
• Emailing with family members, and 
• Cooking in her kitchen without someone present. 

Some of her personal-care disciplines fell by the wayside, too, such as getting dressed every day, applying lipstick, making her own bed - but I'm unsure how much of this was a function of an impaired cognitive state or learned helplessness because of well-intentioned, but disempowering helpfulness by some family members (i.e. doing things for her that she could have done and always had done for herself). 

My mother also had Type II diabetes, which she invariably pooh-poohed as "nothing," and thus, until very late in the game, she did virtually nothing to manage properly. 

To my knowledge, neither of my maternal grandparents developed dementia. But if they had survived the illnesses that killed them in their mid-80s, it's possible they would have had that experience. 

My powers of denial and discounting

Frankly, I ascribed my mother's cognitive challenges to her cavalier attitude about managing her diabetes, her antipathy toward virtually any sort of physical exercise, and possibly, long-term side effects of her pharmacological salad. 

I "knew" it was likely that I am a candidate for some sort of dementia when I reach my mid-80s or later because of my paternal side's atherosclerosis history, but .......... that's so far away, right? And if I catch the causal agents early enough, to prevent or manage the progress of atherosclerosis, I can perhaps prevent or at least slow the onset or the severity? 

And I've been seeking medical screening that will illuminate any early signs of pathology that lead to dementia! 

Also, I already do most of the things the experts tell us to do! I stopped smoking more than 10 years ago. I'm at a healthy body weight. I get a moderate amount of exercise (could do better here). I drink alcohol on a continuum between "occasionally" and "sometimes." 

My journey into aging has been predicated on an assumption that I would enjoy sustained cognitive health at least into my mid-to-late 80s.  

I did not dismiss the likelihood that I'd be diagnosed with some form of cancer that I'd have to respond to. After all, my mother had cancer three times; my paternal grandmother died in her 50s of cancer; my maternal grandmother died of cancer; my maternal grandfather died of cancer. And, hell, I was a smoker for most of my adult life. I was also obese for much of my adult life. So I'm not universally in denial about my health. 

When everything stopped ... for a moment

This past September, I had just moved to a new apartment in a city new to me in State A. 

The move happened after a 60-day period (June 30 through August 31) in which I, in the second year of COVID times: 

1. Moved out of an apartment in a different city in State A; 
2. Traveled to State B for a couple of weeks to visit with family and friends; 
3. Traveled back to an area new to me in State A; 
4. Traveled to both familiar and new-to-me destinations in State C; 
5. Traveled back to State A for a week to look for apartments in the new-to-me city; 
6. Returned to State B for a couple of weeks to visit with family and friends (and to offer support to my daughter while she had COVID); and
7. Circled back to State A to move in to my new place. 

 To tell you the truth, those two months are pretty much a blur. 

So here's the thing that shook me to the core: 

I teach English online to students, mostly business or academic professionals, all over the world. 

On the morning of September 9, ten days after moving in to my new apartment in my new city, I was in a lesson with one of my students. I shared with her how I'd just moved in to my new place. She asked me what city I was in. 

I didn't know the answer. 

I drew a complete fucking blank. 

Nothing else in my head or my body was different, as far as I know. 

My words came out the way they should. (No garbled sounds or word order weirdness that might indicate a TIA). 

I felt no weirdness in my limbs or facial expression. 

I didn't feel lightheaded or dizzy. 

I said, "just a moment," and I stood up and walked to my apartment door and opened it so I could look in the corridor, confident that this would jog my memory. It did not. 

As I look back now, I think I may have scurried (electronically) to my browser to pull up Google maps to see if that would deliver the information. 

I don't recall now how I recollected my new city, but the important consequences of this incident were:

• Both my student and I felt distressed and worried - OK - alarmed;
• The very foundation of my world shifted.
• After we ended the lesson, I popped two aspirin in case I was about to have a stroke. I looked at my face in the mirror. My mouth didn't droop on one side. My walking was normal. My hand movements normal. 

What the hell happened there?!

On September 17, I had an appointment with my new health care provider. I described what happened and explained my fear of something-something - a TIA? Early sign of dementia? What? 

She gave me a very short cognitive assessment test. She gave me three words to remember, then asked me some other stuff, then came back to the three words, which I did remember. There was no indication of cognitive or memory impairment. 

I was only somewhat soothed, because that weird event earlier in the month was appalling. 

Because this was such an extraordinary event, I talked more to my provider. I said nothing like this had happened before. I did not want to let it go. 

I described other symptoms that had emerged in the last 18 months or so: 

Changes in my sleep patterns - going to bed super early (like between 8:30 and 9:00), being sleepy around the middle of the day, and more recently, an occasional dull headache when I awoke. I wondered about sleep apnea. 

Nothing in the blood or urine work that we did that day revealed anything remarkable. 

I scurried to take more cognitive tests, all online. Results did not indicate anything abnormal. 

Although what happened was a loud clanging alarm bell at first, the sound dimmed. I was addressing it; I was taking the right steps. 

And then ..... 

On December 2, there was another lesson. A different student. 

We were proceeding through an article together. She would read aloud a paragraph and then we'd pause to talk about pronunciation and intonation, vocabulary, and content. We'd pass to the next paragraph. 

At a certain point in the article, I was unsure where we were - which paragraph we'd just finished and thus which one was next. 

In the past, I would have said - without any hesitation other than a sheepish tone - "where are we now?" Because there was nothing abnormal about losing track of one's place in a longish text. But because of the astonishing experience in September, I tried to cover up, which resulted in me staying on the paragraph we'd just read - I had guessed incorrectly where we were. Heheh. 

This alarmed my student, which, in turn, alarmed me. Again - no signs that one reads of a TIA. 

So since then I am acutely sensitive to any memory lapse. The search for a word. The remembering of someone's name from the past. What I did seconds earlier. 

I started watching a youtube channel of someone with Lewy Body Dementia. 

For reassurance, I have searched for situations in which people fear they have dementia, but do not, and I have come up empty. There seems only to be the reverse: People who are unaware they are impaired: Anosognosia.  However, this comes close: Stalked By the Fear That Dementia is Stalking You. 

COVID connection

Something I have noticed in the past year - among my friends and students - is a surprisingly common lament about memory lapses. 

I want to apply this to my own situation, to normalize my situation (if there is even a "situation"), to assuage my fear of some kind of cognitive pathology that will force me to change everything - everything! - I had envisioned in my young-old and middle-old future. 

I almost burst into tears when I read this: It’s not just you – we are all more forgetful during the pandemic, experts say. Here’s how to fix it.  I had read similar articles previously, but this one seemed so much more certain about what might be a shared phenomenon that we can attribute to this COVID era. 

I would also propose that COVID arrived after six years of Trumpian stressors, of ghastly and deadly exhibitions of racism (that continue to unfold), barbaric family separations at the border, and current attempts of White supremacists to further embed racism by banning the teaching of critical race theory, to ban books that address racial truths as told by those who experience those truths, and so on. ......... My point being: We were already stressed before COVID arrived. 

Holding many thoughts

I've caught myself thinking too many lines of thoughts in quick succession. For example, I start to move my body toward the kitchen to get A, but in the briefest span of time before I arrive there, my mind has already moved to a whole other line of thinking, maybe two!, and when I arrive in the kitchen, I forget why I went there. 

Lots of contact, but maybe not the right kind of contact

I've made a conscious effort to initiate and maintain contact with people in my circle, present and past. I live in a new location where I've not made local new friends (thank you, pandemic), so geographic distance precludes face-to-face visits with the old. 

Most of my contact with my friend- and family circle has been via email or text. It occurred to me recently that this is not the same as talking to someone on the phone. Furthermore, one of the advantages of regular real-time (and not text) contact is that we note any changes in each other's speech, judgement, memory, etc. Our real-time present communications help keep us on our toes. 

 I've begun to initiate phone calls in addition to emails or texts. 

Yes, there's also zoom, and I use that a lot with my work, but I've learned there is a counter-intuitive intimacy present via phone that is not on zoom. 

 

Memory impairment in the context of age

To the National Institute of Aging: This was so completely unhelpful: 

"Many people worry about becoming forgetful. They think forgetfulness is the first sign of Alzheimer's disease. But not all people with memory problems have Alzheimer's. Other causes for memory problems can include aging, medical conditions, emotional problems, mild cognitive impairment, or another type of dementia." [Emphasis added.]

"Memory problems can include aging." Not actionable. Not measurable. Dismissive. If it's a natural part of aging, why are they memory "problems"? 

The NIA chart below, however, was helpful - irrespective of age: 

Differences Between Normal Aging and Alzheimer's Disease

Normal Aging	Alzheimer's Disease
Making a bad decision once in a while	Making poor judgments and decisions a lot of the time
Missing a monthly payment	Problems taking care of monthly bills
Forgetting which day it is and remembering it later	Losing track of the date or time of year
Sometimes forgetting which word to use	Trouble having a conversation
Losing things from time to time	Misplacing things often and being unable to find them

Seriously, is it correct to call Column A "normal aging"? How is "normal aging" different from "average memory" or "typical memory" or "healthy memory" or "adult memory"? 

Resources on typical memory

Working Memory: The Engine for Learning

Medical Definition of Memory Span

How Memory Functions

My conclusions

Inconclusive.

**Intelligence does NOT default to healthy life skills at home, at work, and in our communities. It does not rule out learning disabilities (e.g. dyslexia) or ADHD or some other neurodivergence.