Here is the way I see it. Should I wake up tomorrow with a burning desire to speak Italian fluently, I hope I try. I may not get there, but I'll be better for the trying. So I took fencing lessons. It didn't work out as a lifelong pursuit, but that's fine. It's not that I want to be a fencer, it's that I want to be a person who is open to new experiences. As we get older our horizons contract, unless we launch a massive counter attack.
Learning about fencing was lots of fun. For one thing I learned that sword fighting in the movies is a bunch of crap. All offense and no defense. A trained swordsman would kill Errol Flynn in fifteen seconds. I also got to meet some interesting people, and was privileged to view a fascinating culture. Now it's time to move on. That's always been one of my faults; I don't "move on" well.
I'm 51 and I'm trying to learn stuff here! Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Men don't stop playing because they get old. They get old because they stop playing." So I agree with that. There's more important stuff to learn than how to hold a foil, or proper footwork. For me, I have to learn to say, "Well that was nice, what's next?"
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