makes me wonder if the reason why it is a lot harder to pick things up when one is older is primarily the lack of large blocks of available time as opposed to the brain being less &quot;plastic&quot; or adaptable as one sometimes reads.<p>When you read famous musicians&#x27; bios, for example, there always seems to be something along the lines of &quot;I practiced 8 hours a day every day&quot;, hence lots of quantity over several years, but this is of course next to impossible to do in adulthood with all the demands on our time.