111–119 of 119 posts
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.
One issue I'm having when learning new things (at 41) is memory. I don't feel less sharp than before, but I have a harder time to recall things that I studied a few months before. For instance, I regularly take coursera classes but one year later, I don't remember much. I'm trying to take more notes, hopefully it'll help.
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Yours is a typical American reaction that suggests that others learn foreign languages only because they might have to communicate after driving a short distance. In fact, Europeans have been able for centuries to communicate with neighbouring countries in their own language or rudimentarily known lingua francas without having to expend effort of picking up a new language. And yet, they still often decide to learn a…
plenty of people do try to learn a second language. that's why apps like duolingo are popular. but language is a medium for exchange, and if you have no one to practice with i don't think you'll really get it. of course, i only speak english myself. you would really trust yourself to translate a film after picking up a language without ever speaking it with anyone?
Sure, this is completely normal. For example, coastal Albanians tend to understand Italian films, television and radio quite well just from exposure to Italian-language broadcasting, even if they never actually interact with Italians. And as I mentioned elsewhere, for a lot of people who learn to understand Spanish media, it all happens through telenovelas, not time spent with actual Latin American people.
Over the last year, I have been studying Serbian and Albanian without much interaction at all with speakers, and I am already at the point where I can enjoy many films and television programmes – sure, I might have to occasionally pause the video and rewind it or look up a word in the dictionary, but the learning and reference materials I have at my disposal are completely sufficient for that, there is no need to actually speak with anyone.
I think the article paints too rosy a picture for older minds. Yes you can learn things as you get older but the bar for your achievements gets lower and lower as you age. Let's take chess: There are no cases of a novice starting to learn at the age of 25 and becoming a grandmaster. You need to do some of that deliberate practice at an early age. I suspect the case is the same for math,programming, violin playing etc…
That means you're not asking whether a 25 year old can achieve a static goal(e.g. read 50 books), but you're asking them to successfully compete with everyone else, which includes other 25 year olds but with 15+ years of experience.
I think the article paints too rosy a picture for older minds. Yes you can learn things as you get older but the bar for your achievements gets lower and lower as you age. Let's take chess: There are no cases of a novice starting to learn at the age of 25 and becoming a grandmaster. You need to do some of that deliberate practice at an early age. I suspect the case is the same for math,programming, violin playing etc…
So I think, there isn't enough data to conclude that someone older can't be a grandmaster. Though, most people won't be a grandmaster either way, so there aren't that many data points to go off of.
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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.
I always went with the idea that if you are not face planting, you are not trying hard enough.
I think the article paints too rosy a picture for older minds. Yes you can learn things as you get older but the bar for your achievements gets lower and lower as you age. Let's take chess: There are no cases of a novice starting to learn at the age of 25 and becoming a grandmaster. You need to do some of that deliberate practice at an early age. I suspect the case is the same for math,programming, violin playing etc…
It's true that as a general rule, if you haven't revolutionized (or greatly impacted) your field by age 30, you're likely not going to ever do it. However, that doesn't mean that the mind of people over 30 doesn't work as well. It may just be that people have different personality types, some people don't care that much about revolutionizing the world, and those who do care do not require all that long to do it. So b…
Look at current nobel prize winners in physics for example. Many of them weren't young when they did their most important work. I read an article about this some time ago, but I wasn't able to find it at the moment.
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In other words, you can only learn to do by doing. However, I don't agree with the "safe place" bit. Sure, some things require a safe setting to practice in because of the danger the real thing entails, but that's not most things. You need to meet reality as it is and as you are--that's when the gears really click into place and you begin to grow. It's why pretense will always stifle learning because you're too busy…
This is what I love about circus training. When you fail, you fall down. Or worse: you collapse on your partner. If you can learn to handstand on someone else's hands without, you can do just about anything. The point being: you have to just go for it. You WILL fail at some point, in any and every endeavor. But the reward is that you might just be doing a handstand on another person :)