individuals in the earliness of its arrival and the speed of its progression.

Practically no one is good at learning complex new skills when very old. But

some people remain pretty good in maintaining intensely practiced old skills

until late in life, as one can notice in many a bridge tournament.

 

Old people like me get pretty skilled, without working at it, at disguising

age-related deterioration because social convention, like clothing, hides much

decline.

 

Continuous thinking and learning, done with joy, can somewhat help delay what is

inevitable.

 

Twenty-Two: Authority-Misinfluence Tendency

 

Living in dominance hierarchies as he does, like all his ancestors before him,

man was born mostly to follow leaders, with only a few people doing the leading.

And so, human society is formally organized into dominance hierarchies, with

their culture augmenting the natural follow-the-leader tendency of man.

 

But automatic as most human reactions are, with the tendency to follow leaders

being no exception, man is often destined to suffer greatly when the leader is

wrong or when his leader’s ideas don’t get through properly in the bustle of

life and are misunderstood. And so, we find much miscognition from man’s

Authority-Misinfluence Tendency.