Capability Peaks

Any claim we might make about aging will refer to a spectrum of effects, not 100% accurate, absolute, universally applicable realities.

So while we tend to become less physically fit (latently) as we age, this isn't true for everyone, and isn't true for anyone in precisely the same way.

Similarly, research suggesting that our cognitive setup rearranges as we get older, causing us to—on average (and among other things)—get better at macro-scale, strategic thinking and less-good at tasks that require focused, hardcore intellectual grunt-work, can be both true and not necessarily accurate for any individual (and it almost certainly won't manifest in exactly the same way for any two people).

All of which is to say we've got some really detailed data on this subject, which has led to some truly useful discoveries, but those discoveries are most useful when viewed through the lens of uncertainty and variability: things can be generally true, even often true, while still being uncertain and fickle when applied with any specificity.

This heuristic in how we think about data and discoveries of this kind is arguably useful across every aspect of human-oriented science, but it's particularly potent when learning about aging because there are a lot of broad claims out there that might be accurate in some respect, but not necessarily applicable or even useful for those of us who are engaging with it.

It might help me to know that elite swimmers tend to peak in their early 20s and that powerlifters and pro-equestrians tend to sustain their apex well into their mid-30s and beyond, but my personal experience may vary wildly from this, and thus any advice I take from people who are basing their advice on the data from which we derived these facts may not be optimal for me and my plans (such advice might even turn out to be harmful if I make training decisions based on these averages, only to discover too late that I'm an outlier).

Such data is still valuable in helping us understand how a generic, average person ages and changes as they age, but it's arguably most useful to individuals as a rough baseline figure: helping us understand where we are outliers, which in turn can help us calibrate our expectations and plans, accordingly, while also providing us with a general sense of what biological and neurological changes we might see over time.

Because of all this data, we know that folks tend to lose some capabilities as they age, but then gain other capabilities.

These are not one-for-one tradeoffs, and they won't always be measured in the same way or be beneficial for the same sorts of outcomes (advantages related to one type of thinking aren't always replaced with advantages in another type of thinking—it may be that we become less-good at marathon-running and more skillful at crosswords).

But even the most general sense of ebbs and flows can help us healthily frame changes we experience as we age, making it more likely we’ll be psychologically prepared to accept, embrace, and benefit from the changing seasons of our lives, wielding the powers granted at each stage rather than longing for (and too heavily relying upon) those we previously enjoyed, but which have since diminished in utility.