Shame in Learning

[Le Baron]

To be frank I've previously let other things pass me by while concentrating on 'career'. I was once a very good trumpeter with years of practise under my belt and I let it slide because I was supposed to pursue 'a proper career'. Now I just play the piano for pleasure and it was only about 7 or 8 years ago that I reignited that before it decayed. Even a career isn't a guarantee set in stone and can also crumble for one or more reasons, as I've already discovered.

So no, I really don't care that language learning takes up time. It's supposed to take up time and you either devote some time to it or devote that time to something else according to priorities. Everyone has to make some living or other, but if the pursuit of it and carrying it out kills off all passions that's not really living.

Devote some time to important and less interesting matters, which can be elastic according to circumstances, and some time to what you love. At some point we'll all expire and no-one wants to reach the end regretting not having done things they could have done.

[rdearman]

Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat...

[jeff_lindqvist]

I have no end goal and I think that's where the shame creeps in.

Who said there has to be an end goal? I have none, and among many things I've been playing music for more than 30 years without a career in mind. I have no interest in a record deal / tour (not even the occasional gig, haha). Teaching? Forget about it. (Once every 15 years, I take a closed door disciple, though. ) Same thing with everything else to which I've devoted thousands of hours.

You're among friends here.

[Agorima]

Personally I always liked learning languages, since I was just a child.
Do I will ever manage to be perfect in learning any language? Of course not.
Do I will ever get money for this? Of course not.
And so what? I will still keep learning until I will be old.
It's still better than losing time on social media.

[chove]

It's very hard to avoid saying anything political on this topic but yeah we don't need to be working for money literally every minute of our lives. Most people spend much of their day in paid employment, the available part of the rest should be your own time to do what you want. Yes, even if that thing doesn't make money! It's so easy to get caught up in the culture of the hustle and berate yourself for not monetising every hobby and interest.

[Iversen]

The only hobby that eventually turned out to be profitable for me was buying a Commodore 64 in 1982 and and teaching myself to program a graphic module for it in machine code (just numbers) because the damned stupid thing could even put a dot on the screen by itself - this was the stone age 80s, after all. Later I programmed some things in its rudimentary Basic, and spurred on by that activity I participated in a two-week course in DOS and a now defunct office suite called Symphony, and during the one week internship that came with that course I found out how to force the matrix printers in my new office to print Danish ø and Ø' - I think it was IBM that had forgotten them so people got cent and yen signs instead, and the Danish employees were happy finally to get o slash and O slash in their documents. Having invented a few other useful things I managed to cling on to my IT career in the same branch of public service until I retired 29 years later.

The only role my language studies played in this was that I was classified as an academic worker with the corresponding salary. But the occasions I had to use any other languages than English and Danish can be numbered on one hand. And I have never earned a cent (or a 'rød øre' as we say in Danish) on my music or paintings- and when it comes to my travelling it has cost a fortune, although it all was money well spent.

Do I then see my studies at the Romance language institute as a waste of time? Of course not - I learnt a lot of interesting things there, and I found a way to survive in a totally different occupation where I had next to no education.

[lusan]

Life isn't a straight line. Nevertheless, I knew one line, I am going to need this when I am older by heart and from a young age. I learned to play chess as a young kid sitting in Barnes & Nobles one or two nights per week. While I played with everyone, many of my opponents were 50 years my senior. If I am as fortunate in my life as they were in theirs, one day I may be sitting opposite myself in a little cafe, sipping coffee and making a grand mess out of 64 squares, smiling all the while. It is hard to put a price tag on a life like that. Similarly, I chose hiking as a physical hobby since it produces great physical benefit now and I can still see myself doing it at 70, potentially to an even greater effect.

I began to play chess, me too!, at 12 years old. Now at 66, I realize that chess has been a friend all my life... A mate till the end of time. I mean: those 50 ones you played with, were likely having a great time. Soon back to B&N to play chess after this pandemia is over.

[Sumisu]

I think the reality is that people think learning languages is such hard unpleasant work that you can't really be doing it for fun - it must be for profit. And it's not that efficient for profit, therefore you must have made the wrong choice.

This is very true. Particularly where I am (USA) 99% of people's experience with language learning is as an academic pursuit, i.e. something they were forced to learn (badly) in school. For them, language learning is akin to solving math equations in one's spare time. On the other hand, there are school subjects such as History that are seen as perfectly ok to pursue as a hobby, e.g. by reading popular History books. I would submit that having a detailed knowledge of say, World War I is no more useful or profitable than learning a language, but for some reason those people get away with it. Or the endless amounts of time people spend reading and talking about politics - for what? We language learners need to stand up for ourselves. What we are doing is just as valid as anything else.

[IronMike]

I feel like I'm rereading Refuse to Choose, the great book by Barbara Sher that Jeff recommended, as I'm reading everyone's posts.

[jeff_lindqvist]

I knew you would like it!