In praise of late learning

Sir Tim of Worstall has got some good advice for everyone here. But there's one assumption I find jarring - that learning a musical instrument is something only young people should take up.
Why? I started learning guitar 18 months ago, just before my 40th birthday; it was that or a Harley. And it's the best thing I've done in ages.
I don't see why people of my age or older shouldn't start to learn new things. After all, we - more than young people - have learnt how to learn. We have the experience to know that many obstacles can be overcome. We have become creatures of routine, so regular practice comes naturally to us. And we are more self-disciplined than we were as teenagers and less prone to distractions.
What's more, it seems that learning helps to develop the brain even in adulthood - it's called neuroplasticity. The idea that our brains are fixed from childhood onwards is apparently false. The benefits of later learning are therefore greater than was thought a few years ago.
All these advantages should at least partially compensate for the tendency for younger people to learn things quicker.
Put it this way. It's a stylized fact that it takes about 10,000 hours of practice to become a top-class musician - that's 3 hours a day for 10 years. Why shouldn't these hours come between 40 and 50 rather than between 10 and 20? Of course, I'll certainly not become a top-class player. But I'll be better than the average pub-rocker by the age of 50. That's a fantastic prospect.
Above all, though, there's something rebellious about learning something late in life - be it a language or an instrument. I'm rebelling against the idea that our lives must be career ladders, where we start at the bottom and work our way to the top.
This is a relatively new idea - the OED reckons the first use of the word "career" in this sense came as recently as 1803.
But why should we stick to one ladder, especially if it was chosen with imperfect information from limited options? And why should we worry about climbing? Shouldn't we recognize that we perhaps have more freedom than that? Or is this just a mid-life crisis?

Comments

[Tim Worstall]

Fair point.

[dearieme]

Just wait until you have a 19 year old daughter: "Daddy, I think you should buy a midlife crisis car."

[Andrew Duffin]

I dunno why, but it seems that music and languages are two things that you really have to learn when you're very young (like, under 12). Older people really struggle with these things.

I think linguistics people (linguisticians?) have some theories about this, but anyway subjectively it is true.

Hard luck on us oldsters of course. I did plenty of musical learning at the right age - piano, organ, singing, all that kind of stuff - and I remember having a 50-year-old classmate who just got nowhere. He was a surgeon, so not stupid, he had some talent, and he worked really really hard but progress was there none.

You may make some progress, but boy will it be a fight.

Tough but true. Get used to it.