On Starting (Later in Life)
I recently took up the ukulele because my son did the same. We take lessons together and talk about music. We are beginners, the two of us.
Our experiences will never feel the same. He’s got a young brain—chock-a-block with potential. I’ve got a … less young brain. But—then again—I have some advantages. I am more tolerant of sucking at things; playing is physically easier for me; I know more about music in general. But which of us has the potential to be world-class? There can be only one. And that one goes to kindergarten.
As for me? With years of diligent practice, I have the potential to be … Ok. At best. So, why start? Not just the ukulele but anything new at this point? It’s a big question.
I think that there are only a few things that make us resistant to starting (or restarting) later in life:
- The belief that not being great at something makes it less fun
- The belief that not being great at something makes it less valuable
- Fear of trying really hard but not making progress
- Fear of being bad at something
- Lacking the right environment, instruction, or equipment
- Not knowing how to enjoy the practice
- Not knowing how to start in the first place
- Uncertainty about whether what you’re doing is safe (you’re not going to pull a hammy playing London Bridge but some new skills do have an element of physical risk)
Am I missing anything here? Let me know.
So, now that our demons are arranged in a neat stack of bullet points, what do we do?
The first thing we do is acknowledge that if you can’t find joy in the process as a beginner, that won’t change as an expert.
Beginning exercisers often share an unconscious belief with me that working out is only difficult because they’re bad at it. They believe that very fit people don’t have to work as hard. But the experience of finding the hardest thing you can do well—and then doing it—is exactly the same. It doesn’t matter what your level is. The practice looks different but the feels are almost identical.
Our ukulele instructor showed me something the other day. It was a simple chord change. He only mentioned it as a quick setup for something more profound. Except that we never got to the profound thing. I had to tell him, “This is breaking my brain. Let me practice for a while and get back to you.”
To my credit, I did practice. It took a couple of sessions for something that felt impossible to feel merely challenging. What kept me going was two things:
- I knew what to do
- I knew that it was within my ability to learn fairly soon (and without needing to increase my existing levels of motivation)
I had enough clarity and enough ability to feel hope. That feeling kept me going for long enough to see progress.
Later, I realized that there was a third thing. I liked the idea of my son seeing me struggle at something and then improve. He doesn’t really care much for practice and I don’t push him on this. But I want him to see what practice can become. I can at least model that.
Zoom in
We have to fall in love with practicing. To do this, I believe that we have to act like bricklayers instead of architects. The idea of great achievement is an architect’s domain. They might envision a house or a grand temple. It might be truly majestic. But they’re not the ones who actually do the building.
An architect might only see the gap between their vision and whatever work currently stands. A few half-completed walls might feel frustrating. Especially if progress is slow.
But what does a bricklayer see? For the most part, they only see the process. So, whether the creation is just beginning or nearly done, they lay the mortar and put down the bricks. They trust their eyes. They make little adjustments. They build things one brick at a time—only occasionally stepping back to make sure that they’re in the right place to build.
To start—and move forward—we only need to lay down one brick at a time.
