Comment by japhyr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by japhyr | Hacker News Reader

I will turn 45 this year. One of my principles for healthy aging is to make sure I'm learning something new and challenging every year or two.

I live in a fishing town in southeast Alaska, and I bought my first boat about three years ago. I bought a 16-foot boat with an open cabin, and it was an absolutely humbling experience. It feels like everyone here knows how to drive a boat, and sputtering through a harbor trying not to take out a row of motors was a really interesting learning experience. It forced me to be open to any and all feedback from all kinds of people. It forced me to seek out advice and assistance from people outside of my everyday circle of friends and co-workers. It made me pay attention to tides and weather in ways I hadn't needed to before. In short, it made me feel like I was looking at the world with new eyes again.

That experience made me look for experiences every few years that are new enough that I have to see the world as a kid does again. Not in the wide-eyed wonder way, but in a way where I have to learn a whole new skill set. This year it's been learning how to drive a truck with a boat trailer. I thought I knew it intellectually, and I knew what I needed to make the trailer do, but I couldn't figure out how to make the back of the truck go where I needed it to. My neighbor was cracking up as he was helping me, and I think it was bringing him back into the mindset of looking at this kind of task from a beginner's perspective as well.

I have a 6 year old son, and I love sharing these learning experiences with him. I want him to know that adults don't know everything, and that you really can spend your whole life learning new skills.

Awesome. I'm 44 and work in technology. Just started tinkering with hydroponics with my kids (kale and catnip lol). It's completely disorienting, I'm beyond clueless and I love it.

One thing I didn't foresee is that my kids never really get to see me learn something from the ground floor. We're basically peers in this and they can see (for better or worse) how I attack the unknown. It's been fun, our plants are so dead.

Oh, man, boats will humble anyone. I managed to go overboard from mine the first day I had it... had to get fished out by some nearby fisherman, who thought it was hilarious.

No kidding. The basic principles at the place where I sail are:

  * Keep the water out of the boat
  * Keep the people in the boat
  * Don't hit anything
  * If possible look good while doing the previous three

It's harder than it looks.

This is off-topic but I'm learning python and just ordered your book earlier this morning (after reading through glowing reviews on amazon). I remember reading your bio and thought that it was pretty interesting that the author was a school teacher in Alaska!

Very serendipitous reading a comment from you here just now!

What are some other new/similar skills you've dabbled in over the years (if you don't mind me asking)?

That is funny. In no particular order, since college I moved to NYC after living all my life in NH. I circled North America on a bicycle, living outside for 13 months at a time. I moved to Alaska and joined a mountain rescue team, and now I help lead our technical rescue team. I got married and have a kid, and I continue to work with at risk students. Writing a book was a deeply humbling experience as well.

I hope to cross the US by bicycle again when I'm 50 or 60. I want to see how much has changed and how much has stayed the same. My guess is more will have stayed the same than changed, once you're out on the road.

Did you blog your bicycle experience? I'd love to hear what kind of preparation goes into that. It's all idea that's become appealing lately.

Not OP but just in the spirit of contribution, here is one of my favorite long-distance cycling journals by a (very thrifty) science & engineering geek.

https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=1mr&page_id=1390...

I wrote a book about it:

https://www.amazon.com/Road-Alaska-Eric-Matthes/dp/154417596...

Bicycle travel is great. You go slow enough to see everything and meet people you wouldn't through motorized travel, but you go fast enough to cover long distances over a period of weeks or months.

That's awesome! I grew up with boats, and have been around them my whole life (boaters ed was taught along with drivers ed in HS in my town). Keep practicing with the trailer, you'll get it. Just take your time :)

One thing with smaller boats and their trailers is that they can be harder to back up. Larger boat trailers have longer tongues so you can back up with more angle before the trailer starts to lift up. For example, on my current boat I can back the trailer up to a near 90 degrees to the truck.

Photography also teaches you to look at the world differently, in a very literal sense.

Here's my vote for skateboarding. You'll never look at boring old stairs, ledges, and curbs the same.

I'm learning to inline roller skate, in my late thirties. I fell over again today, also humbling.

Same goes for surfing. Your life will start revolving around weather patterns and swell forecasts.

Sadly, I do not surf as much anymore because I can no longer have my life revolve around tides and weather.

Same for free flying, in my case paragliding. You'll start to better understand the weather, clouds, which side of the mountain is on the sunlight (because of thermals), and every small hill is an opportunity for flying, however short..

very true. I spent a few years deep diving into manual film photography, scanning and digital printing. I learned to study photographs upside down to see the geometries. The process logic, chemistry and relevant metrics opened my eyes and helped me appreciate fine photography.

Algorithms are really great foundation for learning anything. I prefer outcome goals driving new learning experiences.

My latest project is optimizing a homemade $10/day food regimen optimized for 1) gut immune health, 2) inflammation and 3) common North American seasonal allergies. I call it OSL - Open Source Longevity for retirees. I recently learned Wholefoods gives away premium fish heads for free around 10AM. I have never eaten better cost accounting for homemade tahini, yogurt and peanut butter.

Have you written up the food thing anywhere? I'd be interested in details.

Yeah, there seems to be a serious translation problem converting ideas into mechanical action but it's damn satisfying when you finally nail it. I guess the process in itself requires a kind of creativity because how else could we learn something new. So it makes sense it would strengthen the ability as well.

You should learn to sail.

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