Senescence-Misinfluence Tendency
The passage offers a personal warning about aging, contrasting difficulty with new skills and retention of practiced ones. It recommends continued learning without establishing a uniform pattern of decline.
THE IDEA
Senescence-Misinfluence Tendency
Senescence is an inevitability. All we can do is try to strike the balance between graceful acceptance and raging against the dying light. — Marty Nemko
The author presents a personal view of aging:
With advanced age, there comes a natural cognitive decay, differing among individuals in the earliness of its arrival and the speed of its progression. Practically no one is good at learning complex new skills when very old. But some people remain pretty good in maintaining intensely practiced old skills until late in life, as one can notice in many a bridge tournament.
Old people like me get pretty skilled, without working at it, at disguising age-related deterioration because social convention, like clothing, hides much decline.
The author recommends continuous thinking and learning done with joy. The excerpt does not establish how much these activities delay cognitive change.
When to use it
Designing retirement planning programs that encourage continued cognitive engagement
Developing workplace training methods tailored to older employees
Creating a personal lifelong-learning plan.
Assessing a leader’s current performance and support needs on individual evidence.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
The Bridge Tournament Veteran
An 85-year-old retired professor plays competitive bridge several times a week, maintaining a high level of strategic play. However, when his grandchildren try to teach him a new board game, he struggles to grasp the rules and becomes frustrated.
The Executive Who Won't Retire
A 70-year-old CEO continues to lead her company with strong results by relying on decades of industry knowledge and well-rehearsed decision-making patterns. Her colleagues notice she avoids strategic shifts involving new technologies, steering conversations back to familiar territory.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
Which familiar tasks do you handle well, and which new skills currently require more practice?
How could you assess a change in someone’s performance without assuming its cause from their age?
What strategies can you employ to maintain cognitive resilience as you age?
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- Wisdom Theory 100 Mental Models (2020) (Wisdom Theory)