It’s early yet, so another discovery might surpass this one, but this one is kind of annoying.
I appear to have lost the ability to be simultaneously reading one thing, typing another, listening to another, and speaking a fourth thing. I used to have to do this all the time when I worked at Kinko’s as a desktop publisher, and honed it when I was a sysadmin at various places.
However, I was just trying to do something along those lines here at home (reading a piece of text in a web browser, typing a correlating piece of text into InDesign, listening to the television, and singing a song), and it all ended up a mess. I ended up either typing what I was reading or listening to, or singing what I was typing. I suppose I should be happy that I didn’t sprain something.
So, what weird thing can you do? Or can you no longer do that you used to do?
![Ask the [Seattle/Furniture] HiveMind: Buying a couch.](http://www.covert-ops.org/wp-content/themes/songwriter-premium/images/slide.jpg)
It’s a function of age, I think. I’m not that good at it anymore either. Sorry, lady. Our brains are ossifying.
Despite a grade school teacher that was deeply confused I serve myself soup with my left hand (her test for handedness) but prefer to write with my right, I’ve come to realize I’m ambidextrous. And although Caucasian, I am proficient with chopsticks.
It’s a little ungainly getting them started in my hands at first (you kind of need one hand to load the other), but I can dual-wield chopsticks.
At hot pot or Korean BBQ, I become a double buffered eating machine. Meat goes on the grill with the left hand, off with my right.
Whenever I eat with my wife’s friends, I can hear them remark that I’m using “kwai zi,” which apparently is impressive enough already, and then I have to bust out the dual wield. Always amazes.
It is actually a positive change due to age. We tend to concentrate on what us most important to us and to think more deeply and draw more broadly on all of our increasingly complex neural pathways. If we multitask less well, we do other things better – appreciate the moment at least. And we will live longer, healthier lives.