Ever feel you've 'Dumbed Down'?

whiskeyman

Not quite a PI... I think...

I'm just past my mid 20s and would have considered myself pretty smart and clever. I'd always read the broadsheets, watch the news, other current affairs programmes (Prime Time, Newsnight etc..) and would try to keep up with all sorts of global news, politics, goings on, and trends in the career I would be working. I'd also read lots of non fiction books.
In the past year or two, I've really cut back on a lot of the above. I seem to have abandoned TV altogether (maybe a good thing?), and just don't seem to care about getting stuck into something. I've got a good enough job, but I don't feel like I'm applying myself as I used to do and even other things seem hard to get motivated about. I really feel I've let my brain down and need to get focused again. Perhaps another evening course, training, more hobbies... Anyone else ever get like this? Is this some kind of mid-20 menopause?
I await the guidance from the AH wise ones....

Spud83

Regards the news I think it is kinda natural. It always full of nothin but bad news, and the same stories over and over again (Iraq Iraq Iraq - we get its messed up, tell me somethin new), so after a while you just give up listening to the same things over and over again.

There are plenty of other ways to be smart rather than current affairs. Just try find some books you like, and I would recommend finding a new hobby but not something you do for the sake of it, find something you actually enjoy.

EDIT: Sorry I never get like this by the way, I think I have always been like this.

AlmightyCushion

I've been spending more time in the cuckoos nest so I would have to say yes.

ladylorenzo

whiskeyman wrote:

Not quite a PI... I think...

I'm just past my mid 20s and would have considered myself pretty smart and clever. I'd always read the broadsheets, watch the news, other current affairs programmes (Prime Time, Newsnight etc..) and would try to keep up with all sorts of global news, politics, goings on, and trends in the career I would be working. I'd also read lots of non fiction books.
In the past year or two, I've really cut back on a lot of the above. I seem to have abandoned TV altogether (maybe a good thing?), and just don't seem to care about getting stuck into something. I've got a good enough job, but I don't feel like I'm applying myself as I used to do and even other things seem hard to get motivated about. I really feel I've let my brain down and need to get focused again. Perhaps another evening course, training, more hobbies... Anyone else ever get like this? Is this some kind of mid-20 menopause?
I await the guidance from the AH wise ones....

Thank god..i thought it was just me! I'm putting it down to having studied hard for the past 6 years, my brain has just had enough!! Start reading an article/watching a doc etc and i just seem to lose concentration very easily. Used to love getting stuck in and broadening my knowledge but my brain just doesnt seem to want to go along with this anymore!!
Not gonna worry bout it too much though. as i said, I'm probably a bit worn out after all the studying so gonna give it a break for a while but hoping it's not permanent!!
Nice to know I'm not the only one!! Dont stress too much..just dont try to take in too much. LL

PS I keep telling myself that it couldnt possibly have anything to do with all those years of drinking and not the studying at all!!Sure it would be silly to suggest otherwise....right?!!

MooseJam

do the crossword of a morning

biko

Really it depends on the company you're in. Can you still rise to the occasion if you find yourself in a discussion on Irish foreign policy?

I found that leaving uni and starting to work no-one really wanted to discuss heavy stuff any more, just what's on telly and what to eat next.

Reku

Yup when I started working full time after college:
my vocabulary
my mathmatical abilities
my attention span
all gone down the toilet.

Hagar

Definitely. When I was 18, I was sure I knew everything. All I'm sure of now is how little I do know.

J.S. Pill

Totally

Do you reckon there is any correlation between my decreasing intellectual appetite and my becoming a bitter and increasingly right-wing old fart?

Its not that my intellectual appetite has decreased per se, I just can't find the energy to do anything beyond picking up the Daily Mail and grumbling.

biko wrote:

Really it depends on the company you're in. Can you still rise to the occasion if you find yourself in a discussion on Irish foreign policy?

I found that leaving uni and starting to work no-one really wanted to discuss heavy stuff any more, just what's on telly and what to eat next.

I was just talking to one of my former class mates about when we were in college and how we used to sit around drinking coffee and deconstructing the underlying social assumptions of cereal boxes. So yeah, I think its very important to keep company with people you can drink coffee with and deconstruct cereal boxes...well, doesn't have to be quite that, Irish foreign policy would do.


I think this article nicely sums up the state of 'the news' today.

biko

Great men talk about ideas, mediocre men talk about events and small-minded people talk about other people.

mike65

I blame the interweb myself, grazing is now the default state of mind. To the OP you proberly need a new challange or a shock to the system.

Mike.

philstar

biko wrote:

Great men talk about ideas, mediocre men talk about events and small-minded people talk about other people.

thats a good one ...is that one of Wilde's??

mike65

Admiral Hyman Rickover - whoever the fupp he was (I've been dumbed down)

Mike.

Capt'n Midnight

whiskeyman wrote:

Not quite a PI... I think...

I'm just past my mid 20s and would have considered myself pretty smart and clever. I'd always read the broadsheets, watch the news, other current affairs programmes (Prime Time, Newsnight etc..) and would try to keep up with all sorts of global news, politics, goings on, and trends in the career I would be working. I'd also read lots of non fiction books.
In the past year or two, I've really cut back on a lot of the above. I seem to have abandoned TV altogether (maybe a good thing?), and just don't seem to care about getting stuck into something. I've got a good enough job, but I don't feel like I'm applying myself as I used to do and even other things seem hard to get motivated about. I really feel I've let my brain down and need to get focused again. Perhaps another evening course, training, more hobbies... Anyone else ever get like this? Is this some kind of mid-20 menopause?
I await the guidance from the AH wise ones....

http://images.snurkle.net/d/32168-1/tldr.jpg

mike65

Oh noes cat picture alert.

Mike.

nesf

I find watching Prime Time and reading the broadsheets makes me feel like I'm dumbing down my life to be honest with you but conversely I'll happily enjoy a boxing match and not feel like I'm dumbing anything down.

Reading a good work of fiction, watching a good sporting game or film or whatever can be intellectually rewarding if you engage fully with it. I get as much satisfaction from watching a game of rugby or playing a strategy game on a computer as I do when writing philosophy essays, reading academic journals etc. Don't focus on things that are "atypically highbrow" because believe me, most of them aren't, broadsheets aren't that different to red tops when you get down to it, they're both pushing agendas just one makes it more obvious than the other.

When you get down to it, just following a soccer team can be as convoluted and confusing as relationship between the Doha round of talks breaking down and Brazil and the EU snuggling up close and chatting about trade agreements.

patrickolee

Hate to break this to the OP, but you are not special. You are going through the quarter life crisis!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter-life_crisis


Welcome to the world of navel gazing, it's fluffy down there, Enjoy

6ix

Thank you! This thread is just what I needed to read. I'm 22, finished college last year, and I'm about one year into work and starting to feel dumbed down.

I feel a bit aimless, and I no longer have no interest in many of the things already mentioned (current affairs). I'm also trying to work my way into a better & more challenging position within my industry. My current job is good for experience/CV but it can be soul destroying.

That wiki link makes a lot of sense to me, particularly the first characteristic:

feeling "not good enough" because one can't find a job that is at one's academic/intellectual level

Glad to know I'm not the only one!!

WindSock

biko wrote:

Great men talk about ideas, mediocre men talk about events and small-minded people talk about other people.

Ha. The person that came up with that quote was saying that to be bitchy about someone else.

KdjaCL

biko wrote:

Great men talk about ideas, mediocre men talk about events and small-minded people talk about other people.

Move it to another forum, so where does that leave you?


kdjac

Piste

Reading the paper and keeping up-to-date with current affairs does not make you smart :rolleyes:

Go cure AIDS or something if you want to feel smart.

Jesus Wept

biko wrote:

Great men talk about ideas, mediocre men talk about events and small-minded people talk about other people.

you are insignificant, get over it. Some of us realise it and no longer have aspirations of space travel/curing world hunger/creating new ideas, some of us can't be bothered to discuss these things either, because we know it will not alter anything.




Horses for courses.

If someone wants to really go out and try and make change, then good for them, and good luck to them.

But simply sitting around with your friends and discussing the state of affairs isn't going to achieve much, imo.


If you enjoy talking about current affairs, great, if you don't, it doesn't make you a mental midget.

nesf

The-Rigger wrote:

But simply sitting around with your friends and discussing the state of affairs isn't going to achieve much, imo.

Neither does sitting around and chatting about Big Brother or whatever. Doesn't matter so long as it's interesting to you really.

Find the areas that you are both interested in and able to grasp and you'll be fine. It's only people who are driven to discuss things they'll never really understand who'll be unhappy.

JC 2K3

Piste wrote:

Reading the paper and keeping up-to-date with current affairs does not make you smart :rolleyes:

Go cure AIDS or something if you want to feel smart.

How would one know that AIDS is such a big issue in the world today and something worth curing if they did not keep up to date with current affairs?

Jesus Wept

I don't follow current affairs closely, but I'm aware that aids is a problem.

JC 2K3

But it still means you pay some attention to current affairs.

Jesus Wept

I guess I do.

Maybe I can hang out with the smart kids, bring them drinks while they solve the world or something.

DonkeyStyle \o/

Would you think less of Stephen Hawking if he didn't read the broadsheets or keep up with the latest in politics? I wouldn't.

Personally I take only a little bit of interest in the reality-soap-opera that is current affairs... I've enough of my own problems to think about without having to concern myself with Bertie's flippant suicide references :rolleyes:

whiskeyman wrote:

I'm just past my mid 20s and would have considered myself pretty smart and clever.

It's good to move past this irritating personality trait though. (I'm still working on it)

togster

mike65 wrote:

Mike.

Do you type your name at the end of every pöst?:eek:

Piste

JC 2K3 wrote:

How would one know that AIDS is such a big issue in the world today and something worth curing if they did not keep up to date with current affairs?

Did I say that the OP shouldn't be keeping up to date with current affairs? No I did not.

patrickolee

The-Rigger wrote:

I don't follow current affairs closely, but I'm aware that aids is a problem.

Actually AIDs isn't that big a problem anymore. HIV still is though.
A new class of drug has been discovered with less side effects than current treatments that can keep patients viral load at undectable levels. They still have HIV, but undectable with current test, and progression to AIDS is not a given. They say that these new drugs, which I'm afraid I cannot remember the name of... read it in the paper ages ago ... are similar in the levels of advance as was Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART), when it was discovered. So you've missed the boat on AIDS, probably best to concentrate on something more attenable, like curing the many types of cancer perhaps!

BTW, many researchers in this area think that there will never be a cure for HIV, so wrap up well!

red_ice

patrickolee wrote:

Hate to break this to the OP, but you are not special. You are going through the quarter life crisis!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter-life_crisis


Welcome to the world of navel gazing, it's fluffy down there, Enjoy

fascinating stuff! Its so true, everything i've read in that wiki ref was just spot on

FlutterinBantam

I try to keep up with current affairs,in fact I read in "Heat" that Paris Hilton and Jade Goody may have had treatment for cellulite.

I have no intention of letting myself dumb down.

patrickolee

FlutterinBantam wrote:

I try to keep up with current affairs,in fact I read in "Heat" that Paris Hilton and Jade Goody may have had treatment for cellulite.

I have no intention of letting myself dumb down.

Lol

zuutroy

I couldnt stand more than 20 seconds of Prime Time and Q&A at any point in my life. It just bores the **** outta me. I don't consider myself dumbed down because I get bored listening to a bunch of stuffy old farts arguing. As for the news, most of it is bad for you anyway.
If its something that affects me, I'll find out in due course, otherwise you're just burdening yourself with death and misery every day. I live abroad now and cant speak the language, so I honestly wouldn't know if Belgium was under the control of space ants. A far more refrehed way to live IMO.

Tar.Aldarion

No, I never feel that way. I also don't ever watch TV, it's for the best.

mental07

Holy sh*t, that list of "symptoms" in the Wikipedia article describes me perfectly :eek:

Apart from the "desire to have children" one. And loneliness.

NutJob

Do what i do put the parental lock on mtv.
Has made me feel alot better

whiskeyman wrote:

Not quite a PI... I think...

I'm just past my mid 20s and would have considered myself pretty smart and clever. I'd always read the broadsheets, watch the news, other current affairs programmes (Prime Time, Newsnight etc..) and would try to keep up with all sorts of global news, politics, goings on, and trends in the career I would be working. I'd also read lots of non fiction books.
In the past year or two, I've really cut back on a lot of the above. I seem to have abandoned TV altogether (maybe a good thing?), and just don't seem to care about getting stuck into something. I've got a good enough job, but I don't feel like I'm applying myself as I used to do and even other things seem hard to get motivated about. I really feel I've let my brain down and need to get focused again. Perhaps another evening course, training, more hobbies... Anyone else ever get like this? Is this some kind of mid-20 menopause?
I await the guidance from the AH wise ones....

Tar.Aldarion

red_ice wrote:

fascinating stuff! Its so true, everything i've read in that wiki ref was just spot on

Yeah good stuff.

I stood before Ikea and felt the pull of anonymous adulthood.

``Just what is this place doing open until 11 PM on a Saturday, anyway?'' I asked.

``Isn't it fabulous?'' My companion said, her eyes wide with excitement.

``Yes but...''

``But nothing! Let's go.''

She gripped my hand and we stepped into the abyss.

Hehe

whiskeyman

Phew, thank god I'm not alone!!

Just to clear up, I didn't watch Prime Time, read newspapers etc... for the sake of trying to be clever... I did that because I enjoyed it, loved to get into discussions and have lots of knowledge to back up my points. My brain couldn't get enough info, and I'd even keep old copies of The Economist to go back on and browse when bored, or even on the bog!
Now, it's as if I've just lost interest and really couldn't care.
I loved to watch lots of DVDs, but now just don't seem to have the concentration to sit through them anymore. I'd only get a few pages through a book before retiring it to the shelf.
That article on Quarter-Life Crisis is damn scary and pretty much fits the bill in many ways!

mental07

whiskeyman wrote:

I loved to watch lots of DVDs, but now just don't seem to have the concentration to sit through them anymore. I'd only get a few pages through a book before retiring it to the shelf.

YES YES YES!

Acid_Violet

Fourth year really demolished any mathematical ability I had. My attention span has always been ****, but I think my permanently fluctuating language usage has improved this past while, as have my skills of intelligent arguing.

I try to read or practice music or exercise instead of watching telly but laziness often gets the better of me. I'm thinking of giving up telly again, it may result in more productive activity.

patrickolee

You're going to need to give up boards too, to really see the increases
"productive activity".

Acid_Violet

I'm at work now, if I wasn't on boards I'd be sitting at my desk either playing solataire or playing with office equipment.

RawK

if this is the Quarter life crisis, i feel it has hit me rather prematurely!

Ok, bare with me now, I've recently turned 18 (April to be percise). I finished my leaving cert last year and I got 260. Very below average indeed! I didnt recieve enough points for any of the courses of my CEO (however this argument is somewhat irrelevant, considering I never intended on going to college anyway, I was somewhat 'forced' if you will, to put something down etc)

However, my whole life I've been told by teachers, that I was outstandingly clever for my age. I remeber back in 6th class having an extensive discussion with my teacher about palandromes, paradoxes and socratic irony.
Those topics would most certainly not be the customary conversations of a 11/12 year old now would they? and then throught most of my time since then i've delved into Pyschology, Philosophy, Aesthetics, Etymology and many other things that may come off as somewhat "Meshugganah". However I could never really incorporate these into schoolwork. (albeit, I did have an erudite knowledge of Constructive Criticism, which did help some of the time)

However since leaving school, nothing has changed. I got a job in 'Irish Life' now again, none of my skills would help me here, but you've to remeber the fact that there is minimal skill involved, and its all taught from within the company. Considering the people I work with (average age ranging from 25-50) you would imagine that one (or two?) could have a cerebral conversation... think again! No-offence to anyone i work with, but they've stricken me (and others) as some of the most phlegmatic, slow witted people i've ever met. (Ignorant and arrogant aren't the right words, but they're the first words that come to mind!)

Im thinking though it has something to do with my age. With them all being much older naturally they would look down on someone like me, but its the same with the newer staff too! They just have some of the most airheaded conversations anyone could ever possibly be divulged into, in which my opinions are about as valued as a dose of the ****ing Clap! So I usually find myself immersing to their levels of conversation to compensate for this 'alienation'. One example that actually hurt me in a way was when i tried to explain to my supervisor the how to decipher which road to take in that thing "You're at a T-Juntion one road leads to Death the other to Safty, one persopn always tells lies the other tells the truth etc.." He couldnt wrap his head around it, which is totally fair enough, it is rather head wrecking. but he went as far as calling me "stupid.. talking through me hole, dozy bollocks... etc" (hmm, i think this is where the word arrogant AND ignorant come into play) so you can see the need for the Immersion

Dumbing oneself down by choice is perfectly fine, less effort involved I guess!
However when you've to do it 5 days a week. you find it rubbing off. I keep making up words, using terrible english, forgetting useless, semi-interesting (but sometimes helpful) trivia and vital information I once knew off by heart. Not to mention the lack of confidence and self esteem which I am continuously re-drained of every monday morning.

this was really starting to bother me. so to help stop myself from looking not unlike an ignoramus, i've starting reading again! (mainly fiction, but it helps) although i dont do it enough, mainly because ive started and exercise too! Once of my new obsessions is to watch Q.I. educational and halarious, I totally recommed it!

hmm, I apologize to anyone who has just read this diatribe, I feel I lost the point I was trying to make somwhere in the opening paragraph...