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Comment by wwweston | Hacker News Reader

I'm also finding that as I begin to tread into greybeard territory... I'm still super interested in learning new things. Actually interested in entire knowledge domains I wasn't before.

What seems to have changed is that I have less patience for, though, is learning ephemeral and arcane ways of doing something I already know how to do.

Learn to use microcontrollers? Sure! Never really dove in there, seems like an opportunity. Timeless mathematical knowledge? Totally game. Another front-end framework? Not really interested, maybe I'll wait and see if it survives 5 years and I can actually find people who can talk intelligently about the problems it solves rather than bearing thought-smell terms like "modern" as a fashionable totem.

Reserve new learning for new capabilities.

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This is kind of my experience too, maybe disguised differently. I am finding new topics that take my interest and dig deeper and deeper. Topics I hated in school like geography, biology etc. are fascinating now, can't read enough. But there are also some weird ones - looking into how guns work, details of systems like ar-15 (I know some people judge me as next crazy shooter, for me its just curiosity). Learning how to repair various things at home (variable light switch disassembly is the latest one). Little things. Previously, couldn't care less.

Picked up psychology, trying to understand why many folks behave so weirdly and differently. Again, addicted to no end (Jordan Peterson's videos are a treasure trove for me now).

But still struggling with learning french, so not everything is so shiny.

Or maybe its a common story for my age group, don't know. But I know plenty of folks who are so deep in their comfort zone they don't care about new stuff anymore.

Maybe its normal

History subject is actually making proper sense now. At school it was kinda tedious in some parts. (never had anything against biology, it's all technical stuff that we here like)

Yea, "looking into how guns work" isn't weird. It's just addictive: relative to other problems they're simple and physically intuitive, so for every new mechanism you get a kick from learning another easy thing you didn't need to know.

History started making sense a decade into adulthood, I hated it in school. I picked up a book on Cato and I was surprised some things existed in ancient Rome and modern India: bribing the electorate with money and gifts, people with diverse causes forming alliances and breaking up and again burying the hatchet, arranged marriages to cement bonds between men etc.

If you've focused on technical topics your whole life, 40+ is a great time to pursue a classic liberal arts agenda. I had a neighbour who went to a private liberal arts college straight out of high school (pretty rare in Canada) and I always felt "I should do that!". I've been an amateur economist since my early twenties and while I'm still quite technical it's refreshing to switch domains and read/study in different areas.

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