As we stumble along the path less travelled, it’s important to keep up the search for new and exciting things and not fall into the trap of thinking you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
For instance, a few months ago I learned something new that has completely changed my life.
When the Chief Gardener watched me put my T-shirt on backwards for the third time, she pointed out the wash instruction labels are always stitched into the inside left of a shirt when facing the front.
My mum never told me this.
Neither did any of my school sports teachers or menswear shop assistants.
Now I can instantly slip on a T-shirt like a centre-court tennis pro with no fear of embarrassment or struggle.
I just look for the washing label and keep it to the left.
So I am still learning after all.
It’s not a Max Planck algebraic formula.
It’s how to put a on T-shirt properly.
Which is something far more useful to a struggling 70-year-old.
Now I automatically look for the washing label on T-shirts.
I have realised that despite years of champagne abuse, my brain is still growing, and I have succeeded in creating a new neural pathway.
Then I thought — why stop there?
We are all on a learning curve of some sort.
Even One Nation voters have to create new brain patterns to keep up with Pauline’s next thought bubble.
So a few weeks ago, I decided to take some guitar lessons.
After playing Streets of London for 55 years, I thought increasing my repertoire might also create new neural pathways, and I could then move on to more advanced skills like cross-stitch and cardiac surgery.
Because I believe in reaching for the sky, I told my guitar teacher I’d like to play like Jimi Hendrix, but he said I have to go back to the start and play scales to create finger memory.
Which is why I am now coaxing my fingers to move up and down and across six strings in time to a metronome with increasing speed.
Sometimes my fingers move in line 1, 2, 3 and 4. Or they might move in a different sequence — 1 and 3 and 2 and 4.
On top of this, I do yoga once a week, which teaches my body to move in ways I thought impossible — like lying down and crossing my legs then trying to put them over my head.
I can feel my skull about to burst with a huge roadmap of new neural pathways being created every day.
I either need a bigger head, or I might have to wear a space helmet to stop these vast new cranial pathways escaping into the real world.
I know what Elon Musk feels like now.
Mars is just the first stepping stone.
This morning I found myself trying to put my head through the arm-hole of a clean T-shirt.
I immediately stopped, held up the shirt and looked for the big hole.
That’s a new neural pathway right there.
John Lewis is a former journalist at The News.
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