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The fertility of the older mind

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Re: The fertility of the older mind

#71

Post by DarkTree »

hathawsh wrote: post #38

As a child I was obsessively aware of other people's opinions of me, so I was afraid to make mistakes. Today, I am much better at putting myself in the learning mindset because I have learned a basic truth: learning is essentially the same as temporarily making a fool of myself, but in a safe place . That's how we all learned to walk, talk, and read, after all. If we can learn such complex skills as those then we can…

I think a lot of people can relate to this. I was always afraid of asking questions when surrounded by people more knowledgable than myself. I didn't want to appear stupid, or ignorant by not knowing something I assumed I should have already learned. I later realized that it makes so much more sense to bite the bullet and ask the question the first time. The longer you go pretending to know something, the more embarrassing it becomes when you have to eventually ask what it is later. The people who do this are the ones who appear knowledgable in later situations.

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#72

Post by photojosh »

kzrdude wrote: post #64
mseebach wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably a corollary to that: first you have to get comfortable, but to get really good (fluent) you probably have to get pretty self conscious. It seems to me that most adults learning a new language will retain a fairly heavy accent and some clumsiness more or less permanently (while of course being perfectly articulate) unless they work really hard to get rid of it.

A related thing: I'm skeptical of the popular claim that it's impossible to lose an accent as an adult. I think adults can still learn to speak very close to a native accent, if they keep on trying.

I learned Spanish as a kid/natively, and stopped speaking daily at 17. Now mid-30s, I've lost a significant chunk of my vocabulary, and there are adult topics of conversation with vocab I haven't learned.

But I went back to South America for work in 2009, and apparently I just sounded like someone from a different Latin country. Someone even asked if I was French.

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#73

Post by epalmer »

hathawsh wrote: post #38

As a child I was obsessively aware of other people's opinions of me, so I was afraid to make mistakes. Today, I am much better at putting myself in the learning mindset because I have learned a basic truth: learning is essentially the same as temporarily making a fool of myself, but in a safe place . That's how we all learned to walk, talk, and read, after all. If we can learn such complex skills as those then we can…

I'm almost 64. I will get my CSP (Certified Scrum Professional) certification soon. I am learning Python and taught myself Java at 52-54.

I can run circles around some of my younger associates in terms of critical thinking, design thinking, and integrative thinking. My job requires this and I do it whenever needed.

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#74

Post by suneilp »

hathawsh wrote: post #38

As a child I was obsessively aware of other people's opinions of me, so I was afraid to make mistakes. Today, I am much better at putting myself in the learning mindset because I have learned a basic truth: learning is essentially the same as temporarily making a fool of myself, but in a safe place . That's how we all learned to walk, talk, and read, after all. If we can learn such complex skills as those then we can…

I see it was a matter of how you view your self-worth in the face of a mistake. Society in general likes to put one down for making a mistake regardless of how small or insignificant.

And one's inner dialogue tends to be the nastiest critic and chips away at motivation when learning something new.

It doesn't help that many humans tend to put down others more easily if they perceive them as weak regardless of similar or different identity. Being of the same age, gender, ethnicity, etc. doesn't matter. And people strive really hard to reframe their perspective to view others as weak too.

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#75

Post by egypturnash »

chousuke wrote: post #49
kevmo wrote: post #4

I am 33, and I have paid a lot of anecdotal attention to what seems to keep my brain fresh, i.e. able to still learn new skills at a rapid clip. Just by way of credentials: I was a successful lawyer for a few years of my 20s (rising to level of federal law clerk), but then taught myself to program and have been working as a professional programmer since shortly before my 30th birthday. Even though I am on the older s…

I'm 31, and I started learning to draw a bit over a month ago. Progress is slow, but it's been visible. The kicker was when I realized that talent doesn't really exist; talent is built. The sort of people who are "naturally" talented at drawing and arts are likely to be people who are naturally more intuitive (rather than analytical) and will spend lots of time just grinding away at things instead of trying to unders…

> I have to focus on my shoulder muscles and get them to move my arm elliptically and drawing then simply happens.

Pro artist here. For what it's worth this is a pretty good habit to learn, as it's more likely to keep you safe from the carpal tunnel syndrome fairy if you do a lot of drawing. Good drawing form involves keeping your wrist static, and doing all the motion with your arm and/or fingers.

Learning this feels weird but is well worth it. The best way I found to pick it up is to work with a pencil; instead of holding it nearly perpendicular to the paper, hold it almost parallel to the paper, with your fingers on the far side/top and thumb on the near/bottom; you should get a big fat line from the side of the point touching the paper. This is a grip that all the grizzled old pros swore by when I started working in that industry, and it's helped a ton.

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#76

Post by mariodiana »

hathawsh wrote: post #38

As a child I was obsessively aware of other people's opinions of me, so I was afraid to make mistakes. Today, I am much better at putting myself in the learning mindset because I have learned a basic truth: learning is essentially the same as temporarily making a fool of myself, but in a safe place . That's how we all learned to walk, talk, and read, after all. If we can learn such complex skills as those then we can…

The following is attributed to Bob Hope:

When I was 20, I worried what other people were thinking about me.

When I was 40, I didn't care what other people were thinking about me.

When I turned 60, I realized nobody had ever been thinking about me.

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#77

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

gopalv wrote: post #3

> Or perhaps children are simply less inhibited and aren’t so scared about making mistakes. Struck a chord there - because I had come to the same conclusion of sorts, about my ability to practice activities in public. Riding a bicycle is a fairly hard thing to learn and very easy to practice (from my experience), but learning to do that when everyone around is falling off them was much less of a struggle than trying…

I'm 36 and only weeks ago started skiing. My way of dealing with the "embarrassment" of face planting the snow a lot, though I can't say I ever consciously chose this, is to make sure I'm the one doing most of the laughing.

My belief is this: given how much I've learned from my mistakes, I think it would be wise to make quite a few more. Hopefully new ones.

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#78

Post by hnzix »

ericd wrote: post #43
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing the OP is being downvoted, but I'm not sure why. OP is right. Even in East Asia, plenty of people learn Japanese to watch anime, Chinese to enjoy Chinese classics, medieval stories, CPop, Korean for KPop, etc, etc. South Asia has a very rich intellectual tradition in dozens of languages, and a thriving (albeit scrappy) industry of film in local languages. Don't forget the time-honored trope of learning E…

Do you know if multilingualism is more common in England, Australia, or New Zealand? I've got the (maybe mistaken) impression that it's just not valued as highly in the English Commonwealth as in other countries.

Australian middle schools almost always teach a foreign language, the problem is that it's more or less random - Japanese, French, Italian and Indonesian are pretty common.

Depending on the school you can elect to keep studying a language in high school, and the subject weighting is quite favourable towards your final College entry rank. But most people graduate with minimal retention.

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#79

Post by jackvalentine »

kzrdude wrote: post #64
mseebach wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably a corollary to that: first you have to get comfortable, but to get really good (fluent) you probably have to get pretty self conscious. It seems to me that most adults learning a new language will retain a fairly heavy accent and some clumsiness more or less permanently (while of course being perfectly articulate) unless they work really hard to get rid of it.

A related thing: I'm skeptical of the popular claim that it's impossible to lose an accent as an adult. I think adults can still learn to speak very close to a native accent, if they keep on trying.

I didn't realise that was something people thought!

With deliberate practice and a dialect coach you can pick up an accent, I don't see why the inverse wouldn't also be possible.

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#80

Post by ericd »

hnzix wrote: post #78
ericd wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know if multilingualism is more common in England, Australia, or New Zealand? I've got the (maybe mistaken) impression that it's just not valued as highly in the English Commonwealth as in other countries.

Australian middle schools almost always teach a foreign language, the problem is that it's more or less random - Japanese, French, Italian and Indonesian are pretty common. Depending on the school you can elect to keep studying a language in high school, and the subject weighting is quite favourable towards your final College entry rank. But most people graduate with minimal retention.

US schools are the same way, albeit usually with a focus on French or Spanish. I'm wondering more about the culture - there doesn't seem to be the same culture of language learning that I hear about from Europeans.
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