Typically brilliant article by Clay Shirky who once again elegantly proves a thing that, once you know it, is completely and intuitively obvious but that, before then, is just one of life's curious puzzles. Of course - young people do interesting, creative and novel things and exploit new technologies more easily because they know less. This is the downside of wisdom - the more you know, the more you ignore the little anomalies, the more some things seem obvious and are not questioned.
Clay suggests that this is a real and unassailable advantage of young over old, but I think there is still a chance for us oldies. They key is to completely change your intellectual and/or working life every now and then. Not just a gentle shift from one job to another that is similar, or picking up another skill that draws on your existing skills (e.g. a new language), though that can probably help, but something utterly different and, on the face of it, unrelated to what you have done before.
Created:Sat, 26 May 2007 13:14:25 GMT

Original: http://jondron.net/cofindfrshowresource.php?tid=5325&resid=1285
Posted: May 26, 2007, 7:14 am