Oh, great news--thanks, science, thanks a lot...
Swell. According to some guys at UCLA, I only have about two years left to be brilliant in. Then, after that, I guess I get to spend the rest of my life like that guy in Flowers for Algernon, slowly, inevitably becoming dumber and dumber.
Yes, it's all over. My fate, 'tis written by Dr. George Bartzokis and his research team. My brain will begin to decay into a sodden lump at age thirty-nine, and it will only be a matter of time before I'm trying to interest my friends in Amway™ and regularly voting Republican. I already forget things, and I'm not quite thirty-seven: so imagine what it will be like when I'm forty. I'll probably forget to wear pants to work or something. The humiliation.
And I'm such a young light, I thought. I was starting to think, "Hey, you're not that old. You still listen to college music. You still have time to write some good stories." Well, so much for that nonsense. The myelin sheaths of my brain cells will go all to hell in a couple of years and I'll be too busy buying lottery tickets to even write a decent paragraph. It's the end, I tell you, it's over. In no time you'll be reading my equivalent of Hal's final monologue in 2001: I'll begin talking more slowly and singing a childhood song.
Mourn for me, friends. Today, I'm prete smsrt. butt in 2 yeerz ill bedum
Yes, it's all over. My fate, 'tis written by Dr. George Bartzokis and his research team. My brain will begin to decay into a sodden lump at age thirty-nine, and it will only be a matter of time before I'm trying to interest my friends in Amway™ and regularly voting Republican. I already forget things, and I'm not quite thirty-seven: so imagine what it will be like when I'm forty. I'll probably forget to wear pants to work or something. The humiliation.
And I'm such a young light, I thought. I was starting to think, "Hey, you're not that old. You still listen to college music. You still have time to write some good stories." Well, so much for that nonsense. The myelin sheaths of my brain cells will go all to hell in a couple of years and I'll be too busy buying lottery tickets to even write a decent paragraph. It's the end, I tell you, it's over. In no time you'll be reading my equivalent of Hal's final monologue in 2001: I'll begin talking more slowly and singing a childhood song.
Mourn for me, friends. Today, I'm prete smsrt. butt in 2 yeerz ill bedum
Comments
I say this, as someone who is closer to 50 than to 40, if I'm decayed now, I must have been one brilliant son of a bitch in my twenties. Oh yes, brilliant.
I jus wish I cud rimember it...
Janiece, you get the bleach and plastic sheeting. I'll grab a shovel. Eric, you do lawyer stuff, this doesn't concern you.
My grandparents, however, bless their hearts, decorate their yard with all sorts of Obama paraphernalia.
Don't give up hope!
However, if I'm ever so far gone that I vote Republican, just take me out to the woods and shoot me.
Must read now:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/10/20/081020fa_fact_gladwell