Complex Numbers

Mind Games

If I thought I was going to live to 90, I might do some things differently.

PROMPT May 20th

If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you choose?

I mean, if you've been following along, my answer should be really obvious.

Still, I have to say it depends. Do I get to pick the 30-year-old? Can she be hot?

Seriously, though, it depends on what's actually meant by "the mind of a 30-year-old." If I were writing a monkey's paw story where someone wishes to retain the mind of a 30-year-old for 60 years, I'd probably get them stuck at age 30 in terms of not being able to learn anything new. With age comes experience as well as some loss of mental flexibility, and it would really suck to keep the flexibility but be unable to use it.

I'm not sure if I'm explaining this right. I spent five hours on the phone today, mostly on hold, trying to get an account sorted out at the bank. That hold music is now etched into my synapses until the end of time. When I finally got it sorted, I drank to try to get the muzak out of my brain. In that, I was only partially successful, and now between the earworm and the lingering aftereffects of an entire bottle of really good red zinfandel, I'm not sure I'm thinking straight.

Anyway, let's not do the monkey's paw thing and assume that by "the mind of a 30 year old" it's meant to be mental flexibility, learning ability, neuronal plasticity, all that. Well, then, definitely that. I'm way more focused on mental pursuits than physical, anyway, and after seeing both of my parents gradually deteriorate from dementia before age 90, I know for certain that I don't want to go there myself. I'd rather be physically feeble and mentally alert than mentally feeble and physically hale.

While sex would be better with the latter, that's not going to happen with me anyway, so why bother?

All of this, of course, assumes that it's truly a binary choice, like the one a while back that asked if you had to lose either hearing or sight, which would you choose. If a genie popped out of one of my beer bottles and told me those were my only choices, I'd ask for another beer instead. I mean, life is life, right? Cheating isn't any fun.