Blog posts sometimes pile up without ever seeing the light of day. Such was the fate of this post about about ways we can be reborn in midlife, including learning new things. Namely: by being a rookie at every stage of your life. You can jump below to a link to an NPR story about this idea, and I've copied out what I think is the most salient part of the piece.
But first I will also mention a new book about this idea by Tom Vanderbilt. The New Yorker ran a really cool review that re-convinced me, let's say, that we should seek out ways to learn and grow even as we are primarily charged with helping our children learn and grow.
If nothing else, such decisions might plunge us into new communities. There is so much to recommend about the experience I had getting an MFA in writing somewhat later in life, for example, but one particular benefit has been induction into a loose but fervent community of writers. Not to mention the dreaded name Facebook, but I am a member of several groups on that platform dedicated to Bennington alums that underscore the importance of writing for us.
On a lighter note, I am now a paddleboarder! (That's a paddleboard I was loaned to tool around Lake Champlain a few summers back in the picture). Did you know there are paddleboard races?! Like maybe it will be in the Olympics some day? Craziness -- except the experience of being out on the water, especially alone, is practically religious. I don't know if I am doing it right, I only know paddle-boarding around a small island in Vermont and stopping at various coves along the way felt very right.
Vanderbilt says learning new skills activated a part of his brain he believes had been dormant for decades. I believe it. I want to get better at paddle-boarding just as an instinct. There's no prize. I don't even really think it burns very many calories! But it's new, and exciting and adjacent to my other aquatic interests. So why not? (It's probably why I insist on speaking some French when I visit Montreal -- the child locked in my brain delights at having a new puzzle, a new hard task).
Here's the link to the New Yorker article:
And from the never-posted file, a wonderful piece from NPR...
http://www.npr.org/2016/03/17/469822644/8-ways-you-can-survive-and-thrive-in-midlife
...which includes this tip:
4. "At every stage of life, you should be a rookie at something." This insight comes from Chris Dionigi, a Ph.D. in "weed science" and the deputy director of the National Invasive Species Council (that kind of weed). He believes trying new things and failing keeps you robust. He took comedy improv classes and now spends many nights and weekends riding his bicycle as an auxiliary police officer for Arlington County, Va. Always have something new and challenging in your life, he says, "and if that something is of service to people and things you care about, you can lead an extraordinary life."
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