A Brain is a Terrible Thing to Lose

If you find yourself losing nouns (see "Forgetfulness" by poet Billy Collins), you are ready for this post. Braininess is a state of physical and mental sharpness brought about by frequent exercise. When you had work in front of you, you had to remain sharp. Now, it is very easy to slip into a semi-somnolent state and let the nouns (and soon the verbs) slip by you. What to do?

Read the newspapers. I define the word loosely to mean paper or online but not to include television news which is, to misquote the immortal Groucho, to news as military music is to music.

On the theory of know your enemy, we take the New York Times

(commons.wikimedia.org) and the Wall Street Journal, hoping to get a range (mostly from A to B) of ideas. Being traditionalists, we get the papers delivered. This gives you no out. Either you read them or they pile up--a permanent reproach. But delivery forces you to grapple with articles like "Futures Dip on Discouraging News from Japan" and "Lowballing of Losses Key to 'Whale' Probe."

For fun, you can look at sites like Politico www.politico.com, reputed to have inside-the-Beltway knowledge, Real Clear Politics for current articles of every stripe www.realclearpolitics.com/?state=nwa, and of course the great Nate Silver for all things statistical, both baseball and political, at fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com.

But the operative word above is "read." There is nothing like this old-fashioned activity for exercising the brain. Believe me, when I finished learning about the 'Whale' probe, I needed a rest.

#retiredinnewyork
#seniorsread
#readforbrainexercise