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If you have been doing something all your life and you enjoy doing it why stop? However, the question I have been struggling with lately has been: how do you p

by sireat 12y ago

If you have been doing something all your life and you enjoy doing it why stop? However, the question I have been struggling with lately has been: how do you pick up something new later on in life? If you start to learn basket-weaving at 40, you are not going to be a great basket-weaver. If you start programming at 40, you are not going to become Bill Joy or Fabrice Bellard, sorry. (counterexamples in any field welcome) Your 10k hours count for much less at 40 than at 15. That guy(Danplan) who started golfing to become a Pro at 28 is slowly starting to find that out despite his progress. So you have to pick your fights very carefully, if you are a chess master you can probably become a decent shogi or go player and vice versa. If you have a solid foundation in math, you can probably do decent physics work at 40. However, and this is what worries me, if your art in grade 5 was dismal, are you going to be able to get decent at 40? That one lady in article sold her first painting at 89, but the question is whether she took up painting late in life or was that just a lucky fluke. (selling != enjoying painting)

dan00 12y ago
> However, the question I have been struggling with lately has been: how do you pick up something new later on in life? > If you start to learn basket-weaving at 40, you are not going to be a great basket-weaver. > If you start programming at 40, you are not going to become Bill Joy or Fabrice Bellard, sorry. (counterexamples in any field welcome) This kind of thinking is pretty much the result of an only performance oriented culture. You don't need to be the greatest of the greatest to enjoy what you're doing or to make something valuable for other people.
superasn 12y ago
> If you start to learn basket-weaving at 40, you are not going to be a great basket-weaver. Sometimes just learning things is the goal. E.g. I'm learning German in my free time (as a new hobby) and surely I will never be a great german speaker/writer but then I don't aspire to be. Maybe I will have a use for it later, maybe not. If you focus too much on the prize rather than what interests you and makes you happy doing it, you will lose the motivation to get started because it is easy to dismiss everything by saying "why bother I'm never going to be that great now"
thisGuysAccount 12y ago
I'm going to guess you're either around 20 and just don't know many people who took up new pursuits in their later years, or that you're late 50s and haven't seen peers put the same amount of effort they put in when they were in their 20s. Most of the 15, 20 year olds I know who are _good_ at something are almost obsessive about it. It's not just that they're young, it's that they're really hard workers.
- sireat 12y ago
  In fact I am neither, I am in my early 40s and thus my question. I too was obsessive about certain things(programming, chess) at that age. My problem is that this is not enough anymore when you are older. Even if you have all the time in the world, you will not be able to improve as much as some 15 year old in a year of intense study. So it goes. I do not want to get bad at something, I want to get decent at something that would help people be it basket-weaving, or teaching German philosophy from original German texts. My pet theory for some time has been that in order to achieve something significant in some field, you must have done a lot of deliberate practice before reaching certain age. So some talent, lots of hard work and age < 20(25) are necessary conditions. The age part has mostly been ignored, while hard work part has been emphasized.
jkaunisv1 12y ago
That ten thousand hours thing is bullshit. You can become great at something in far less time with intelligent, focused practice. You may not be the complete expert, but you can achieve great things in that field. Stop imposing these limitations on yourself and just go out and learn something. Everybody's art sucks in grade 5. It's very rare for a good artist to be good as a child. It's entirely developed from practice. 2-4 years of art school can take crappy amateurs and turn them into skilled professionals, whether they're 17 or 47.
jimbokun 12y ago
You got me to look up the Dan Plan guy, and it looks like he is steadily progressing. http://thedanplan.com/statistics-2/ http://thedanplan.com/statistics-2/ Don't know much about golf, but looks like his handicap is still on a consistent downward progression after well over 5,000 hours towards his goal.

by sireat 12y ago

dan00 12y ago

> However, the question I have been struggling with lately has been: how do you pick up something new later on in life? > If you start to learn basket-weaving at 40, you are not going to be a great basket-weaver. > If you start programming at 40, you are not going to become Bill Joy or Fabrice Bellard, sorry. (counterexamples in any field welcome) This kind of thinking is pretty much the result of an only performance oriented culture. You don't need to be the greatest of the greatest to enjoy what you're doing or to make something valuable for other people.

superasn 12y ago

> If you start to learn basket-weaving at 40, you are not going to be a great basket-weaver. Sometimes just learning things is the goal. E.g. I'm learning German in my free time (as a new hobby) and surely I will never be a great german speaker/writer but then I don't aspire to be. Maybe I will have a use for it later, maybe not. If you focus too much on the prize rather than what interests you and makes you happy doing it, you will lose the motivation to get started because it is easy to dismiss everything by saying "why bother I'm never going to be that great now"

thisGuysAccount 12y ago

I'm going to guess you're either around 20 and just don't know many people who took up new pursuits in their later years, or that you're late 50s and haven't seen peers put the same amount of effort they put in when they were in their 20s. Most of the 15, 20 year olds I know who are _good_ at something are almost obsessive about it. It's not just that they're young, it's that they're really hard workers.

sireat 12y ago
In fact I am neither, I am in my early 40s and thus my question. I too was obsessive about certain things(programming, chess) at that age. My problem is that this is not enough anymore when you are older. Even if you have all the time in the world, you will not be able to improve as much as some 15 year old in a year of intense study. So it goes. I do not want to get bad at something, I want to get decent at something that would help people be it basket-weaving, or teaching German philosophy from original German texts. My pet theory for some time has been that in order to achieve something significant in some field, you must have done a lot of deliberate practice before reaching certain age. So some talent, lots of hard work and age < 20(25) are necessary conditions. The age part has mostly been ignored, while hard work part has been emphasized.

jkaunisv1 12y ago

That ten thousand hours thing is bullshit. You can become great at something in far less time with intelligent, focused practice. You may not be the complete expert, but you can achieve great things in that field. Stop imposing these limitations on yourself and just go out and learn something. Everybody's art sucks in grade 5. It's very rare for a good artist to be good as a child. It's entirely developed from practice. 2-4 years of art school can take crappy amateurs and turn them into skilled professionals, whether they're 17 or 47.

jimbokun 12y ago

You got me to look up the Dan Plan guy, and it looks like he is steadily progressing. http://thedanplan.com/statistics-2/ http://thedanplan.com/statistics-2/ Don't know much about golf, but looks like his handicap is still on a consistent downward progression after well over 5,000 hours towards his goal.