Nat

Today I was reading a newsletter from Apple about a music journalist who uses several Apple hardware and software products to produce his podcasts on the music industry. As I often think when reading about artists, I bemoaned the fact that I’m too old to learn how to use all of these tools. Then I caught myself.

Usually when I have these thoughts, it’s in the context of some job I would like to do but didn’t train for. I assume that learning music and radio production would take too many hours of study and experimentation to allow me to then apply those skills to produce my own podcast.

Today, for the first time, it struck me that I’ve essentially begun to divide the world of new opportunities into ones that I’m too old to start. But that’s a completely crazy way to think. Plenty of young people learn an instrument part time while they are going to school. Plenty of adults go to school at night while working full time jobs all day. Besides, I loved school of all kinds and am a very fast and enthusiastic learner.

So when did I tell myself that it was too late to take on learning something completely new? I guess when I decided that I could only start to do something if I were going to become outstanding at it. It was a shock to reveal to myself my own ridiculous standards for starting something.

I realized that I might get a great thrill out of learning to produce music on a computer, just from other people’s samples, just to be able to create a podcast and set up a web site. And if I can only afford 2 hours a week to practice, then it will just take me a while to learn.

There’s nothing wrong with taking a little while to learn. Michael’s been teaching me that for years as he works on his photography and guitar. I gave up acquiring new skills years ago, and it’s been killing me.

I’ll be on the lookout for new things to try.