"Many of us are wary of being dismissed as dabblers, people who have a little too much leisure, who are a little too cute and privileged in our pastimes.... We might remember... that the word 'dilettante' comes from the Italian for 'to delight.' In the eighteenth century, a group of aristocratic Englishmen popularized the term, founding the Society of the Dilettanti to undertake tours of the Continent, promote the art of knowledgeable conversation, collect art, and subsidize archeological expeditions. Frederick II of Prussia dissed the dilettanti as 'lovers of the arts and sciences' who 'understand them only superficially but who however are ranked in superior class to those who are totally ignorant.'... The term turned more pejorative in modern times, with the rise of professions and of licensed expertise. But if you think of dilettantism as an endorsement of learning for learning’s sake... [m]aybe it could be an antidote to the self-reported perfectionism that has grown steadily more prevalent.... '[I]ncreasingly, young people hold irrational ideals for themselves, ideals that manifest in unrealistic expectations for academic and professional achievement, how they should look, and what they should own'.... Fluid intelligence, which encompasses the capacity to suss out novel challenges and think on one’s feet, favors the young. But crystallized intelligence—the ability to draw on one’s accumulated store of knowledge, expertise, and
Fingerspitzengefühl—is often enriched by advancing age."
When's the last time you learned a new skill? If you had to identify 5 new skills to learn — which is something
some older person in that article did — what 5 would you give yourself? The guy referred to in the article took on chess, singing, surfing, drawing, and juggling. I wish I could think of just one thing — one or 2. You know, tomorrow is my birthday, and it's one of the Big 0 birthdays. I'd like to think about something to do about it. The skill, perhaps, of stopping time. Apparently it's fine not to be good at it at all — a pure dilettante. But you can only slow the
perception of the passage of time, and the relevant skill is
boring yourself. What an awful skill!
७७ टिप्पण्या:
I recommend learning to knit.
We'll have all the time in the world to learn new skills in Camp. At least until the sorting, anyway
When I was 68 I took a bookkeeping class and found a job right afterward. I didn't really mean to do that and quit after a year. Rather pointless at my age.
I've been learning accordion for over a year now. That's kinda fun but I was looking forward to jamming with other players and all that has stopped for now.
The only new skill I want to acquire is a disinterest in politics, which has been driving my life for too long.
Started learning Korean. Love the alphabet.
I've always wanted to learn to play guitar, so I could play songs and sing along at a campfire. I've downgraded to ukelele. I'm thinking about asking for a ukelele for my birthday, but then I would need to commit to taking lessons and I just don't know if I can do that while working 30 hours, helping oversee remote learning for my two kids, and exercising every day.
Start slow with juggling...anyone with reasonable hand-eye coordination can learn in less than an hour.
Cut a small slit in three old tennis balls and fill them with sand (it's easier to do with a heavy ball).
Now practice up against a smooth wall...beginners tend to 'chase after' the balls in the air...the wall keeps them from getting away.
Keep trying and the light will go on at some point.
Viola...you've got a new skill.
Happy birthday btw, now get off my lawn!
I learned to work zoom.
Driving, chipping, pitching, putting, and full swing.
"I've always wanted to learn to play guitar, so I could play songs and sing along at a campfire."
Bullshit. You just want to get the chicks (or dudes) : )
I think this is a fascinating topic. I do think dilettantism is a good thing. Especially in retirement. But isn't it a fancy term for "beginner"? If I start learning bridge at 65, I'm a beginner...but "dilettante" sounds so much more.... fancy. It implies a certain
condescension to what it is I'm learning, because it's saying "of course, this only one among my many, many side projects, and I doubt I will ever become proficient."
My reaction (as a 65 year old) to both Ann's post and to the part of the Talbot article I read, is --
if learning new "skills" is the answer, what is the question? (Apologies to G. Stein, who probably did NOT say this on her deathbed, though if she did, full marks.). Am I bored? Or, is surfing something I wished I'd done at 17 and didn't?
First, why "skills"? We used to say "pastimes" or "hobbies" or (bloodlessly) interests. If you've been a devoted reader all your life, as I have, and you switch from, say, fiction to non-fiction, as I have....is that learning a new "skill"? Do older people feel pressured to "learn new skills", or are they trying it because the new skill genuinely appeals to them? How many 65 year olds could conceivably take up surfing, as a dilettantish hobby let alone a "skill" to be mastered? some yes. In my view, there's a lot of "humble bragging" here. "Oh, I know I'm not very good at it but I've been taking lessons in surfing and Mandarin now that I'm retired. Oh, and what are YOU doing? Still gardening and taking pictures of Lake Mendota in the dawn?" THAT kind of remark puts down the other people you're talking to, most of the time. It's show-offy. (As is everything in The New Yorker these days.) Of course I'm not saying don't try new things -- if you actually WANT to do them, as opposed to feeling you MUST want to do "new things", or you'll be written off as a wretched, over-the-hill person.
"Driving, chipping, pitching, putting, and full swing."
I'm decent enough at 4 of those to be a 6.9 index without practicing.
If I could chip I'd be a four index.
I am the world's worst chipper...thank God I hit a ton of greens in regulation.
Btw, what the hell is Captcha's obsession with traffic lights and crosswalks?
A skill I picked up in my mid-40s became my so-called career, and a pretty good living.
If only one, let it be yoga. Namaste!
I learned to swim, at 40. I am slow, but can swim laps. For someone terrified of water this is a huge accomplishment. I can backstroke and freestyle. Still having trouble with breast stroke.
Blowing bubbles in the water at age 40 with a gallery full of parents watching their 5 year olds learn to swim, is slightly embarrassing. As was wearing the bathing suit in front of everyone. The gallery of parents applauded when I was able to do it the first time. I wanted the earth to swallow me up whole...
At 68 I'm learning to:
1. Read music.
2. To play the blues guitar and becoming more proficient in classical guitar.
3. To run the Pro Tools program in a recording studio.
4. Kitting out a small recording studio.
4. Out fitting a large van to drive to Alaska from Florida and back again..
5. Ride a piapo board with a Boost electric propellor fin.
It's going to be a great year personally if not politically.
How much of a monetary investment do you want to make?
About 20 years ago I learned how to ride a motorcycle and bought a BMW.
Someone once introduced me like this:
"This is [Freeman.] She has a degree in mathematics."
Me: "No, no, I don't."
"Well, she is interested in mathematics and is... well... uh..."
Me: "A dilettante."
If someone shames you for having hobbies, you should laugh at him. What a bore he must be!
I learned to write memoir in the last three years. Better now having plenty of experiences for material at age seventy. Memoir techniques are often taught at continuing education workshops at universities. I took two at UW-Madison before the CE program was gutted.
I consider myself an opsimath (a person who begins to learn or study only late in life).
Didn't you introduce the word to us, Ann?
m
Happy Birthday, Annie. 70, eh? Start of the years where, when people hear you've died, they no longer say, "But she was so young." Sorry, girl ;~)...
I learned to juggle in my 30s (Incidentally, 3 limes are the perfect size and heft, and cost less than a buck), including flat on my back, which is a different deal because your throws are overhand rather than underhand. My son, when he was a kid, could ride a unicycle and juggle at the same time, fluently, including juggling pins, harder because you have to make the pins come around as well as come down just in time...
Not really a marketable skill, I wouldn't say. Not for me anyway...
"Fingerspitzengefuehl"! Good one. Usually first encountered in biographies of German generals. What's the lady been reading?
Speaking of which, I'm a proud dilettante in the two topics that have fascinated me most since I could read and listen, and expect to just become a more perfect dilettante as I age.
When I ran into the history dept secretary, whose husband I had had some graduate classes with, after filing my retirement papers in 2015, and told her the news, she asked brightly, "So, going to get that [history] pee-aytch-dee now?"
Farthest thing from my mind then, and now.
Narr
Is the ocarina hard to master?
"Didn't you introduce the word to us, Ann?"
Yes.
I love learning languages. Spanish is my second language, but I'm still a dilettante in French. German or Italian would be next. I would prefer a live class, but that isn't realistic now. Can anyone recommend a language-learning app or program that you like?
Bought a CZ P-10 fall 2019. First hand gun I've shot in 50 years. Anyone at the range calls me a "dilettante," better smile when he says that.
There's nothing wrong with dabbling or being curious.
Dilettantes -- in the pejorative sense, to me -- seem to be the ones to make a public show of this Brand New Thing they're "curating."
And a year later, they've moved on.
I do understand the tendency of those of us getting older to consider furthering an existing interest to be a better "investment" than starting another from scratch.
I was never much one for DIY projects, but with lockdown and unemployment I've had the time to put into learning how to do things like plumb a kitchen sink drain and also how to install an RO system. Also, I've consistently worked on my marksmanship skills since the mid 1980's, but the ammo famine has put a stop to that!
I'm learning to sleep through coups and revolutions. It comes naturally at my age.
For me:
* re-learning classical guitar, this time by actually practicing scales and learning proper
left had/right hand technique, instead of just picking the thing up and wanging wires
* studying music theory--not necessary for classical guitar, but to understand how jazz and
rock musicians improvise their way through chord progressions. That's always mystified
me.
* learning Egyptian hieroglyphics, to go along with a life-long interest in Ancient Egypt
* trying the new version of Microsoft Flight Simulator
I passed 100 days of Duolingo Spanish today. I plan on going to Spain in the Fall. I'm 63 and the last foreign language class, unless you count FORTRAN in College, was sophomore French III in 1972
David Begley,
I rode BMWs from 1996 to 2017. Great bikes. Did you ever ride any endurance rides?
I agree with May Bee. Knitting is a good thing to take up. It's relaxing, and you end up with something you can use. I thought I was going to a book club, but the schedule had been printed incorrectly, and I walked into a knitting group instead. They sat me down, and handed me some needles and some yarn. Before I left I could cast on, knit and purl. When I went back the next week, I had a finished dishcloth, and they showed me how to bind it off. It doesn't take much to learn the basics. There's not a huge investment, and it can be a solitary activity or a social one.
@Jim 4:13 What do you think of Duolingo for learning a new language?
I used to knit quite a bit. My wife called it Controlled Fidgeting.
Knitting is a good thing to take up.
I took it up in first grade, used to knit in the back of the bus. Didn't last into second grade. These days knitting needles are probably deadly weapons. Can you take them on board airplanes? Checking... Only if they are less than 4" long.
Did you know Dirac discovered purling for himself after watching Landau's wife knit?
At age 55, after my back surgery that forced me to retire, I spent a year in New Hampshire, developing an interest in quality measurement in Medicine. I enjoyed my tim e although I was alone except for visits by my kids. Dartmouth was in the process of developing a new way to measure quality but none of the people working there was a surgeon. The study I did for my Master's Degree, used the same methods but on surgical diagnoses. I submitted a grant proposal to NIH (actually NIKDD) but the readers did not understand the statistical methodology and the grant was turned down. It is now in common use in "outcomes research."
I used similar methods in a proposal when I got back to California but it got turned by the administrator at a university hospital who could care less about quality care and was ignorant besides. Almost as ignorant as the Spritzzzz troll who mentioned it a week ago.
For my 50th birthday, my wife got me piano lessons. I'm 54 and still going. About 18 months ago, I started an online course in Spanish. I'm working my way through Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal right now.
1. Learning to play the guitar.
2. Turning wood on a lathe (does that count, I've been woodworking, mostly cabinet & furniture making, for years).
3. Cooking that doesn't involve baking (smoking, braising, curing, dabbling in making food from other countries and cultures).
4. Studying Data Science (this is the newest one).
Not sure what #5 will be. Suggestions?
Can anyone recommend a language-learning app or program that you like?
I'm 64 and my Covid extra free time project is upgrading my very crude survival Spanish to an intermediate conversational and reading level. I've be using Duolingo every day. Can't say its' great, but it's OK when mixed with other Spanish online sources and easy reading Spanish books. I also try to watch some Spanish language TV everyday. The news is good as there are visual cues to see what they are talking about.
Amateur, too, has a pejorative sense nowadays, but originally it connoted a "lover" of some skill or art, and commanded respect. A morbid anecdote reflecting the original sense comes from the 18th-century, when English gentleman George Augustus Selwyn attended the execution of failed royal assassin Damiens, who was lengthily tortured and torn apart by horses. Selwyn had a taste for the morbid and attended as many executions as he could."Being among the crowd, and attempting to approach too near the scaffold, he was at first repulsed by one of the executioners, but having explained he had made the journey from London solely with a view to be present at the punishment and death of Damiens, the man immediately caused the people to make way, exclaiming at the same time: -- "Faites place pour monsieur; c'est un Anglais et an amateur." ("Make way for Monsieur, he's an Englishman and an amateur." (From the Posthumous Memoirs of Sir Nicholas Wraxall)
@Joe Smith, RE: the Captcha, just skip it, it is not required.
I was never aware of the source of meaning for dilettante. Honestly what the group of English gentlemen did sounds pretty good nowadays. I suspect it seemed more ostentatious back then because far fewer people had enough resources or luxury time to pursue those kinds of hobbies but now a days lots of people do. Isn't what all children go through in basic schooling an amalgamation of various different dilettantish levels of study in various subjects? They get merely a small understanding about the history of Ancient Rome and Greece, Roman and Greek mythology, Genetics, plate tectonics, any individual books they might read and give a report on, etc. Knowing a moderate amount about a bunch of different things is helpful in life. I think Scott Adams calls it 'the skill stack.'
On a related note, I always liked the water color paintings that George W. Bush did in retirement. And as far as I know he only started it in retirement.
I learned how to write machine learning code about 2 years ago. Useful stuff except for its limited application in helping people to learn.
JHC - if you interested in something, pursue it, dabble with it, whatever. And tell the sneering ones to shove it.
I'm trying to answer that Second Act question myself. By the end of this year, I'll be completely out of the career I pursued for the last 20 years. Still trying to answer the obvious question: now what?
Thanks, @Amexpat.
Well when I retired 5 yrs ago I took up knitting - I enjoy it tremendously. Then this past October I discovered quilting. I made 5 quilts for Christmas presents. I call them lap quilts - perfect size to cuddle up under. They are hand quilted and I discovered that I love that process. My sewing machine that I received as a high school graduation present in 1973 - is considered ‘vintage’ - I have never done any sort of maintenance to it - but it still does an acceptable job of sewing straight lines!
I've been learning to play the guitar, learned Python (its a programming language), and I've honing my hacking skills. Getting ready for a pen tester certification test so that my Security+ won't go out of date. Don't know if it counts as a new skill, but I'm constantly looking for and trying out new recipes/cuisines.
I have described myself as a dilettante many times.
I'm reminded of the literal meaning of "amateur," "one who does something for the love of it." It's why the Olympic Games have traditionally been limited to amateur athletes, until "Olympic competition" itself became a profession, or at least a goal for professional athletes (which are what, then? Anyone who professes to be an athlete)?
Althouse said...
When's the last time you learned a new skill?
Watching the Hunter Biden sex tape.
My hobbies are:
Astronomy. Our new home building project includes clearing the trees for an observatory. It'll be spring/summer next year before the observatory goes in.
Wood working, primarily construction. As soon as we get the permits for our new house, I need to repair the bridge across our creek. Some of the deck planks are in poor shape, so those will be removed and new planks added. Then, next year, I'm tearing the bridge out and replacing it with a new bridge with greater span but lesser width. It'll give the creek more clearance in case of high water.
The observatory will sit on a wood deck.
My wife wants a hammock by the creek, so I'll make an hammock stand for that.
It's probably definitely certainly not a new skill but you seem to be refining sharpening and improving your photography. Having your cataracts out probably didn't hurt.
Nothing wrong with refinement. after all how many brand new things can you learn?
A lot of the wood for my projects will come from the cedar and Douglas firs on our lot. I'm having a traveling saw mill come to cut them into raw lumber. Before the lumber can be used, it needs to dry for about a year before they're dry enough.
"@Joe Smith, RE: the Captcha, just skip it, it is not required."
It isn't until it is. Today it started being the only way I could post.
I couldn't post this reply without it.
I will also hit the same big "0" later this year. The project I want to undertake - but don't know how or where to begin - is to photograph and memorialize the various vintage ornaments and family heirlooms, together with ancestor photos and brief history. None of the scrapbook programs really provide what I want and I'm not artsy enough to try and put it together in way to make it "keepsake" forever. I'm thinking of hiring someone from the local hobby shop to help.
I started rebuilding clarinets when I turned sixty or so. It was an opportunity to handle something physical after spending all day pushing bytes around, and after playing the things for fifty years or so I know a thing or two about what makes a good one. Good old ones needing repair are easy to find and relatively cheap. Best of all it is not a particularly lucrative thing, so the urge is easy to control.
It's easy to learn things through internet forums and old school manuals if you respect people and ask intelligent questions. I came up with a couple of wrinkles to procedures that knowledgeable people seem to like. I wind up giving most of them away to promising students or letting school band programs auction them off.
Selling the things is the worst part of the process. The best part is the collecting. Having the instruments you always wanted sometime in your life available to play whenever you want, as well as being able to confidently do your own maintenance is pretty great.
Most old men in sheds seem pretty happy.
My other hobby is beer brewing, and drinking same. I belong to a beer club, called FBOMB - Friends Brewing On a Monthly Basis. It hasn't met in a long time because of COVID. I favor ales, rather than lagers.
I'm going to start all-grain brewing after we move into our new house. Don't have space for that now. Brewing is not a complicated process, just requires attention to sanitation and temperature during the brew process and during the fermenting period.
When done right, the beer is very tasty.
I was never any good in foreign languages but did study Spanish in Jr. High, Hebrew, and French in college -- which was a horror show because all the other students in the beginning class had taken French in HS, plus the teacher was Italian and had a thick Italian accent. She also used to not wear underpants and flashed the male students in the class. The language lab we were required to attend was completely useless -- there was no way to slow down or repeat the tapes. That's all changed with computers. So technology has improved a lot in making learning languages more fun.
During this Covid year I've been using Duolingo to brush up in Spanish which is a lot easier than I remember, and study Italian which I adore but have no illusions about becoming fluent. I'm using Memrise, a fun ap for learning conversational Hebrew. Bluebird is also an interesting ap and worth checking out. There are other digital options available through the public library. After Covid has passed and I am able to travel I'll see how worthwhile this endeavor is.
I've been painting (oils) and not bothering about whether they are sellable, posting them on Instagram or my facebook page. I'm trying to ignore my inner critic and engage more in creative exploring. It's easier said than done. I guess I might be called a dilettante because I'm not a professional but I see a dilettante as someone who doesn't work that hard at or believes they are better at it than they are. For legal purposes I consider myself a hobbyist/amateur. But I think my stuff is better than many people online who call themselves artists and are selling or trying to sell their paintings. NTTAWWT. Maybe I'll join them one of these days.
"...are wary of being dismissed as dabblers..."
I knew right away the author was female from this phrase. All articles written by women MUST mention how much emphasis is placed on the opinions of others.
Freeman Hunt said:
Someone once introduced me like this:
"This is [Freeman.] She has a degree in mathematics."
Me: "No, no, I don't."
"Well, she is interested in mathematics and is... well... uh..."
Me: "A dilettante."
**************
LOL I have a co-worker that keeps telling everyone I'm a chemist. Why? I make cold process soap, can talk about saponification, and can use words like "molecule". Talk about lowering the bar....
Plan a trip to some country in Europe -- personally, I'd say everyone has to see Rome at least once -- if you want a challenge, including really learning the language, as well as planning what cities / museums / ruins you will see. (Obviously you could go somewhere else, but Japanese, e.g., is a lot harder to learn, and Latin America doesn't have much more history than North America.)
@FWBuff @4:28 I've tried Spanish in Ten Minutes a Day and Pimsleur and I like Duo best. When I can walk outdoors again, I'll go back to listening to Pimsleur from iTunes to complement Duo. I'm better at reading than listening and Duo is better for reading, IMO.
1 year into my stats PhD program, 4.0 after the two semesters, I got a Masters 10 years ago. The only problem is that it is on zoom except for tests probably til next fall.
Learn to invest your own money. Stock trades are now commission free, so it costs little more than a time and research commitment. You will win and lose but surprise yourself and your family that yu don’t need to work on Wall Street to be successful and in better control of your finances. Hedgeye.com is your coach and #1 data resource.
1 year into my stats PhD program, 4.0 after the two semesters, I got a Masters 10 years ago. The only problem is that it is on zoom except for tests probably til next fall.
My intermittently moribund blog is called Mr. Dilettante’s Neighborhood. Being a dilettante comes naturally. I am more interested in photography than blogging these days, but as the thought police increase on social media, I may start ramping up my production a bit again.
I learned crochet last year. However, I'd already been knitting for many years, and lots of experience in needlecraft.
I've also been teaching myself the cello. But again, I'd been fairly proficient in strings, guitar and violin, which makes it very easy.
So, I don't know if those would be considered learning totally brand new skills. Maybe just building on skills that I already had.
Thanks, @Rosalyn C. and @Jim
Those are helpful suggestions.
A couple skills anyone can learn in a day
playing the chords for Silent Night on a ukelele
preparing Salade Nicoise
memorizing the field of view around any given bright star as seen through binoculars
flipping open a Gideon's Bible two or three times and finding a phrase that speaks not only to your heart but that is something you want to share with someone you love
Joe Smith@3:13PM
LOL, I'm the reverse of you:Great chipper but miserable putter. This is because I was raised on a college campus whose golf course had sand greens. (low maint, but very small diameter. One picked up the ball from where it landed, placed it between two iron rails which bisected the sand "green", smoothed the sand w. an iron barreled/handled "Squeegee" and "putted"--made for piss-poor putting practice as there was no "greens grass" to "read" but for GREAT chipping practice as the "greens" were so incredibly small..used to spend hours practicing chipping onto those campus "greens"--until tennis began to dominate my time..I was the son of the Universities Head tennis coach, after all :) )
I'll say it again. Happy Birthday Ann! Enjoy your day.
Skills, huh? I'm a firm believer in doing stuff hands on. Because working with your hands also develops your brain.
wood working. Nothing elaborate. Bird houses, mail boxes, trays. Once you get started you'll see things that need to be made of wood.
Sewing. On a machine. This is something I'm going to do because there are outdoor accessories I need.
Programming. Simple stuff like an Arduino or a simple PLC. Some thing you can use to turn motors on and off and lights and stuff.
Learn how to weld. If nothing else take a class and you get a whole new appreciation of those people that Weld pipe and structural steel and all kinds of stuff in all kinds of weather.
Take something broken apart. Find out why it broke. Fix it.
In the past 14 months I've studied German. (I could probably hold a conversation with a 7 yr old German child.) And I've studied or learned to play the ukulele. I'm not stopping at Silent Night. I'm deep into learning the fretboard and finally figuring out chords. I'm 63.
My blog is Confessions of a Language Addict, so most of my hobbies are language related. Right now I'm learning about Chinese/Japanese brush calligraphy with a view to calligraphying the Heart Sutra (which I'm also learning to read). And I'm midway through writing a grammar of the Romagnol language (local language in Italy, probably dead in 30 years). But I'm also planning to get back to knitting and the ukulele, which I've done just enough with to know I need a lot more practice to do anything with them.
I think the biggest mistake people make is to look for some sort of "return on investment" for their hobbies. Sometimes some real world options will come out of a hobby passionately pursued, but even if not, keeping your brain busy staves of dementia and Alzheimer's while giving you something to look forward to. Be sure to pick at least one thing that's completely useless.
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