Posted on 10/16/2026 12:09:27 PM PDT by CharlesOConnell
I first got onto this "Hacking Your Own Brain" business, because, whereas I used to be able to schmooze with almost anyone, after a certain decline in one of the cognitions, (social, emotional, intellectual and motor skills), I found myself, no longer a sociability master, but silly, to the point of irking others.
I never formally studied this topic, how to reverse brain aging. But I have practical experience with it, that you probably can't get in college. (In the 1st comment, "I hacked my own brain, as it were, going through the exercises in "Your Brain, for Dummies".)
This brings up a legacy of shame, something that is often worse than the thing being ashamed of. "You have cognitive decline? You've been losing your marbles? What's wrong with you?"
We've all been trying to get our marbles back in our heads since we were babies.
I read a book as a textbook for 11th grade humanities, "Understanding Media" by Marshall McCluhan, "the Medium is the Message". (Very poor summary, really, almost ad blather, that phrase is almost an afterthought.)
But it's good, it's cheap, it's old-school, it's legacy.
A paraphrase, that flips good handwriting on its head, cursive or d'nealian--it could be thought that needing to write is itself a handicap: "Non-literate people will ask, 'why do you have to write it down? Can't you remember?' "
Another paraphrase: "(Asiatic) Indian students commonly memorize the whole of the Bhagavad Gita, 700 lines. ... If every copy of the Bhagavad Gita were to be simultaneously lost (what if Indian Communists took over?), it could be instantaneously restored to print by any of millions of Indians."
If every human skill is learned by trial-and-error, how do I overcome the shame of having made lots of mistakes? Yes, by feeling rewarded for being skilled; but if I sit on my laurels, I will forget how I did it.
The real answer, to overcome the shame of not being good at something, is to practice doing it.
"There's nothing worth doing, that isn't worth doing badly." - G.K. Chesterton, "Father Brown" Author.
How do I reverse brain aging? But resuming old skilled habits I used to practice, whether I might not have liked doing them, or whether I wasn't particularly very good at doing them, I only did them because they paid. But my brain couldn't tell: I was skilled, at a cognitive habit.
It was doing them, that counted, then, and now.
I practice cognitive, manual-tactile, auditory, visual, social or emotional habits, that I don't have to learn like I never did them before, things I've already learned, some only a year or so ago (I'm 72), some in mid-life, some in youth, some in childhood, some in infancy, some while in utero.
From the first posting: "(Asiatic) Indian students commonly memorize the whole of the Bhagavad Gita, 700 lines." (It would make a short book in the Bible; the first 5 books of the bible, "The Pentatuch", are thought by some scholars to have been held in oral memory for 500 years before they were written down, like the way the Homeric Epic Poems, Iliad and Odyssey, were oral poetry.) "If every copy of the Bhagavad Gita were to be simultaneously lost (what if Indian Communists took over?), it could be instantaneously restored to print by any of millions of Indians." (But some might not have learned it by reading, but by being orally drilled in it, like Times Tables.)
Things I learned only a year or so ago (I'm 72): How to produce good quality music using MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) on a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation, Cubase.)
Things I learned in mid-life: Production Data Entry, Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, Internet Languages (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), Microsoft Access desktop database, Structured Query Language (SQL).
Things I learned in youth: Run a paper route, throw the paper from bike, work as a sous chef, work in a bakery, study Ancient Greek, get an A in calculus.
Things I learned in childhood: to read, to write, to do English composition, to learn Latin.
Things I learned in infancy: to breathe, to drink, to crawl, to walk, to run, to speak, to sing.
Things I learned while in utero: to move, to react, to listen to my siblings to prepare me to speak.
All things I can lose through cognitive decline. All things I can resist losing, by doing.
Lately, I’ve been thinking of improving my penmanship by relearning how to write proper cursive, and I mean REALLY write it without the shortcuts. If nothing else, the newest generations will see it as code and won’t be able to decipher it.
bfl
I know people who won’t do anything without electronic aids where available
They’ll visit me or ride in my car and say things like ‘why are you not using Alexis for this? Why are you not using your map, backup camera etc. Why aren’t you asking your I pad for the amount in that recipe”
But accusationally. They don’t like my answer ‘I don’t need that. I don’t want to’
Then they want to know how I remember occurrences in our childhood I’m the go to person for that
They refuse to think where they don’t have to.
I hypotheticize that it at least isn’t beneficial to have electronics doing so much thinking
(Thinking Caps are no longer being issued, but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere)
Cursive handwriting is way underrated. Big problem for our future, allowing schools to cancel this. Why would they ? The answer to that tells you a lot
Cursive writing is too hard to teach nowadays. Anyone else remember the cursive letters above the blackboards? I write in cursive better than printing.
The Catholic school my children went to still teaches cursive writing.
“ Cursive writing is too hard to teach nowadays”
What does that mean?
People have changed? No.
Cursive writing became obsolete with the advent of the ball point pen.
The entire purpose was to avoid splotches from lifting up a fountain pen or quill.
That said, it’s very pretty when done well.
My kids learned it in elementary quite recently. And had to use it exclusively until 8th grade.
Now teachers demand printing or typed.
“Cursive writing became obsolete with the advent of the ball point Pen”
It did not.
For anyone curious or wanting to be informed please look into this. Cursive writing is very important for cognitive skills
When my sister (a 5th grade teacher) asked why her students couldn't write in cursive that is what she was told. Apparently 'teachers' don't 'teach' anymore. That was 25 years ago and no, she is no longer a teacher.
“ that is what she was told.”
By whom?
I remember the practice booklets or sheets that had cursive words or letters for you to trace, then empty lines for you to practice with. Nobody reads my handwritten notes these days besides me, but I still like to lapse into cursive sometimes because I don't want to lose the skill and it's kind of a tiny artistic outlet for me, someone who isn't artistic in anything else.
But, yes, this skill is going the way of the Dodo, just like the ability to drive a car in manual. At least if you have a manual transmission vehicle, it decreases the odds of it being stolen by some young punk.
Bookmark
I’m a lefty and I was only OK at cursive (we always called it script). Mom’s was perfect.
Out of college I started working as a draftsman - something I’ll bet young people don’t even know what it is. And all I did was print letters and numbers using a sizing template.
These days my handwriting is about a 50/50 mix.
ALSO IMPORTANT IF A SIGNATURE CHALLENGED.
I’m 70.
I play the drums.
Keeps the mind and body limber.
The neighbors less so...
“Cursive writing is too hard to teach nowadays.”
Have the students become dumber?
When I was learning cursive as a grade schooler back in the early Sixties, I simply couldn’t do it. My motor skills were poor, and I was uncoordinated and clumsy.
I hero worshiped my dad, and he had very neat block writing. When I was seven, I decided to imitate it as closely as I could...and I succeeded. Funny, I have my dad’s papers, and when I see his handwriting...I see my own.
Back in the late Nineties, I purchased a handwriting font.
You had to submit a sample of your handwriting, and they sent you a font.
It is awesome. I use it for all my personal correspondence. When I was in the Navy, I wrote letters incessantly, sometime ten at a sitting. (I was told that if I didn’t write any letters, I wouldn’t get any, so I wrote all the time)
Just a few years ago, I sent a card with a message in my handwriting font to a woman I had corresponded heavily with when I was in back in the Seventies.
Next time I saw her, she remarked on how neat my handwriting was, because she still had a lot of letters from me that she had saved! I had to tell her it was a font.
The only way she could tell the difference is that the rows of text in using the font were far more straight and orderly than my handwritten letters! We did a comparison...:)
Thing is, the block text I used was perfectly suited to a font. Not sure how cursive would look.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.