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I keep seeing variations on the same thought in this forum. "I'm X years old, that's too old to start / to try / to have any chance to get good at Y."
Almost invariably, X is younger than I am now, often younger than I was when I started doing literally every single one of the things that are now my greatest passions in life. I always want to encourage anyone who has a thought like this to ignore it and just do the thing. There is time. If you are nearly 30, or 40, or 50, or even 60 or 70, you will have years to expore and enjoy whatever you choose to take up.
Every hobby and interest and skill that I am passionate about is something that I started "too late." I learned my first word of a foreign language as an adult, much too late to easily acquire a foreign language. I got hooked, though, ended up fluent in two foreign languages, and have spent almost my entire life since that point living abroad.
I've played RTS since Command & Conquer came out, but had no understanding of the strategy and didn't even know there was a StarCraft scene until I discoverd TL when the SC2 beta came out, when I was already 28. I debuted in Bronze when the game released, and made Master League for the first time two years later, studying Day9 Dailies and practicing while my newborn daughter napped during my paternity leave. After a long hiatus, I got back into the game a couple of years ago, and at nearly 40, with kids and a mortage and a job and all the stuff that we all have as grown ups, I'm making another run at Master League.
I have always wished I could make music, but I always figured it was just too late; I took piano lessons as a kid, but never really practiced and so I couldn't play anything. And I loved to sing, but I couldn't hit a note to save my life, and my voice sounded... well, like a dude with no idea how to sing. Then David Bowie died in January of 2016, and something about his life sparked something in me. I was 34 that year, awfully old to start learning, but I signed up for singing lessons that week, joined a local choir a few months later, and started performing in local musicals a year after that. I started taking piano lessons, too. Now my days are full of music - Bach and Mendelssohn and Mozart and Queen and the Beatles and old American folk songs. And two days ago - three months before my 40th birthday - I joined my first band!
I'm obviously very pleased with myself - I'm proud of pulling off this shit. It's not easy to be a grown up and be responsible to your children and your spouse and your employer and still find the time to invest in yourself and the things you care about. But I'm not sharing this from a need to toot my own horn; I really just want to put the idea out there that "I'm too old" is almost never a good reason not to do a thing. I started doing almost everything I care about when I was "too old," and my life is exponentially richer because I did.
 
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Good read. To me it feels like it has more to do with perception than age. In general people are very depended on what other people (family and friends as well as total strangers) MIGHT think of them. In my opinion age works really well as an excuse to not do certain things.
I think that many people are afraid to try new things, because they might be bad at it at the start. The actual outcome of whatever endeavor they started is more often than not drastically different from their expectations. This is a painful gap. I know this feeling first hand as a guy in his 30's who still skates and in general has a hard time admitting that he sucks in areas that he genuinely cares about.
I don't want to jump on "all social media is bad"-bandwagon, but the constant stream of videos and images of the highest skill ceiling in whatever someone is interested, can be detrimental to the perception of themselves.
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On May 06 2022 17:04 daskleinehotte wrote:
Good read. To me it feels like it has more to do with perception than age. In general people are very depended on what other people (family and friends as well as total strangers) MIGHT think of them. In my opinion age works really well as an excuse to not do certain things.
I think that many people are afraid to try new things, because they might be bad at it at the start. The actual outcome of whatever endeavor they started is more often than not drastically different from their expectations. This is a painful gap. I know this feeling first hand as a guy in his 30's who still skates and in general has a hard time admitting that he sucks in areas that he genuinely cares about.
I don't want to jump on "all social media is bad"-bandwagon, but the constant stream of videos and images of the highest skill ceiling in whatever someone is interested, can be detrimental to the perception of themselves.
I agree that when people feel like they are "too old" for something, it often has little to do with their actual age and more to do with their comparing themselves to others with more experience. I think people often feel like "wow, that guy's been doing X for ten years. I should have started doing it ten years ago, too." But of course, ten years ago that guy had no experience, and there were plenty of experienced people around to give him the same feeling.
Your point about social media is very well taken. The way people curate themselves for public consumption, taking huge amounts of work and presenting it as just a few minutes of content, can certainly make the viewer feel like their skill level will just never measure up. If the video showed the actual process, though - an amazing piano performance likely represents a decade or more of serious study and dozens if not hundreds of hours of piece-specific practice - you'd see that it's a totally achievable result for someone with the passion to put in the necessary work.
The thing about admitting you suck about things you care about is so important. That was one of the big steps that got me to finally embrace music. The thing is, I'm objectively terrible. With lots of work, I've improved, and I'm no longer embarassingly terrible, and I'm honestly quite proud of the music I make, but I'm just not that good in terms of hours of grind vs quality of result. And that's fine. The point of making music is making music. When I am sitting at my piano, singing and playing, I am really happy. And I'm sure you feel the same way on your skateboard. There's a really harmful idea in modern Western culture that hobbies are meant to be productive - we're supposed to monetize them or turn them into content to harvest attention. And that's frankly bullshit. I'm a pretty solid software engineer; that is the skill I monetize so that my family can have food and clothes and a nice house and all that. Every other skill, I pursue because doing so brings me joy; there really shouldn't be any other bar that we set for what we choose to do with the free hours of our lives.
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Well put!
Maybe I should pick up singing 
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On May 06 2022 19:42 _fool wrote:Well put! Maybe I should pick up singing
My opinion is that everyone should sing. It's an amazing form of expression that anyone can do, it's a great way to connect with others, and it's incredibly satisfying to make progress in because you, yourself, are the instrument you're playing.
I guarantee there's a choir somewhere near you that would love to have you as a member. Most church choirs are desperate for more voices (especially male voices if that's the sort you happen to have) and most of them don't have any auditioning or skill level requirements to join, so they're an awesome way to start.
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Well, I got into training Muay Thai when I was 31, 32, now I'm 38 and I'm still trying a couple sessions a week. I was aware I'd never be a competitor, I just liked the sport but up until then there wasn't a dedicated gym in the third world shit hole that I live in and I've never wanted to try boxing or even kickbox. I've had a lot of fun developing the techniques (still poorly, I must add), drills and mostly in sparring.
My point is that I don't think the kind of activity matters that much, be it painting, music, some sport, chess, whatever, it's never late to start as long as one has a clear image of one's goals and capabilities. I'd commend every conscious effort and step towards improving in something. So I commend op for starting his singing career.
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I heartily approve this message.
It's also never too late to do any amount of exercise. Being fit is relative to who you are and what you want, not some objective measure. Moving around more will have a positive impact even if you, maybe unlikely on TL, are of retirement age. Sometimes especially then tbh.
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On May 08 2022 18:35 lechatnoir wrote:
I heartily approve this message.
It's also never too late to do any amount of exercise. Being fit is relative to who you are and what you want, not some objective measure. Moving around more will have a positive impact even if you, maybe unlikely on TL, are of retirement age. Sometimes especially then tbh.
Very much agreed. It seems to me that a degree of physical fitness is important in any pursuit, since being physically fit is so important to cognitive fitness and general wellbeing, too. For me, since I haven't returned to a gym since Covid began, that means lots of walking; I am a birder, and I spend at least an hour every day wandering the countryside around the little German village I live in, just enjoying the beautiful local birds and looking out for the occasional rarity.
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Solid blog! I am currently just working my job while my friends are doing grad school. I worry that I have stagnated, but when I compare myself to who I was before I see I have come a long way.
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I’ m too young to start;
But seriously I can relate to the music part; had a similar journey to you, started at 24, “way too late to learn music”
As a result I enjoy classical music immensely and can listen for hours, where as before I could listen to a 4 minute classical track at best; if you enjoy classical music I recommend classic fm
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Great message overall. I try to tell people the same whenever they doubt themselves of pursuing a new activity, hobby or education but feel limited by their age. Age should never hold you back to start something new, we only have this one life and we should make the best of it and what we want to do or dream of doing or learning. Age is just a number and it's never too late to improve your life, well being or challenging yourself to overcome obstacles no matter the age.
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Thanks I think I needed that.
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I really like this guy! kudos to you. Nice message. Im 38y old and still looking out for things like that.
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Beautiful message.
I tried getting into guitar on a phone app a while back, because I think everyone SHOULD learn an instrument but its so hard to find time in the day. I will stay determined. I have a lot of work because I dont really have musical talent but that doesnt mean I cant grow.
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On May 17 2022 15:29 lestye wrote:
Beautiful message.
I tried getting into guitar on a phone app a while back, because I think everyone SHOULD learn an instrument but its so hard to find time in the day. I will stay determined. I have a lot of work because I dont really have musical talent but that doesnt mean I cant grow.
Thank you.
I have found that signing up for lessons was very effective. The lessons themselves are very useful because you get a more experienced perspective on where you are and how you can improve. But much more than that, I find that knowing I have a lesson coming up gives me a lot of motivation to get in my daily practice. I hate the feeling of showing up to a lesson not having made significant progress compared to the previous week.
Finding the time in the day is really hard. I have the good fortune of being able to work full-time from home, so I take piano breaks where other people might go grab a coffee or chat with a co-worker. Plus I don't have to waste any time in a commute. Even with all that, I still find that I have to be really brutal with myself to squeeze an hour of real practice into a day.
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EPT
