Hacker News Reader

Many years ago I heard about someone who started learning the piano at 70 and was a concert pianist at 80. That's stuck in my head ever since as a counter argument to any time that I think it's too late for me to start learning something new.

View on HN

That's both inspiring and horrifying. I'm a little older than the demographic here and sometimes see myself on this somewhat stressful hamster wheel of "Okay I tired of x, now I should explore y." Then y becomes tiresome and I move on to z. Over and over. I wondered when that would end. I guess it never does. No one talks about what happens when your life becomes steady. You just get unsatisfied in other ways so then your hobbies take over. Worse, if you don't do anything like this and just become a TV/social media addict then you brain ages worse than being a productive forever learner. I think about the Buddhist idea of suffering and being forever unsatisfied here a lot and wonder if the meditation crowd has this better figured out.

I think the other solution is diving into more interpersonal relationships. Atleast those can be extremely fulfilling over a long time.

That's super inspiring. I'm learning piano improvisation and music composition at 50.

If you have the name of this person, please share and I'll write his story on my blog.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com