Quackcast 746 - It's never too late

There's always time to start learning something new! If you think you're bad at art and people told you you lacked talent back in the day and that if you didn't start as a child then you have no chance to be good, please know that all of that is false- you can become an amazing artist whenever you start. In-born magical “Talent” is absolutely not required! Practise is ALL you need. None of this “10,000 hours” bullsh*t either, that's another myth. Just keep working at it over and over and practising new things till you get the results you want.

This cast was inspired by Gunwallace's newspost last week where he discusses this very thing. We go a bit deeper into the subject and Tantz lends her considerable academic and scientific weight as well as numerous anecdotes. It really is a persistent myth that you can only learn well as a child and then after that you may as well not even bother, but that's wrong for a lot of reasons. Like most myths it is based on grain of truth: children's brains are “empty” so they're predisposed to gather as much knowledge as fast as they can, copying from everything, so they can learn to survive and become functioning humans. Because of that they can seem to pick up the basics pretty fast. When you're an adult you don't have that need anymore so you pick things up slower. That's all it is, you can still learn at any age and in fact adults have the advantage: they're more dedicated to what they want to learn and they have the experience and intelligence to understand what they learn and make better use of it, so they can synthesise that knowledge, apply it to other things and sub in other knowledge and experience to augment their learning.

In my own experience teaching digital animation to tertiary students, in which they were taught how to use media creation tools on their computers, the basics of animation and how to create a full animated project, the older students did so much better than the younger students that they were in another league. People of the ages 50 and 60+. They were more dedicated and more interested. The younger students 18 to early 20s had more trouble understanding what they were doing and staying focussed. And in my experience as an art student at university it was much the same, older students always did better, without exception.

Why is this? When you're older you have more experience and can deal with distractions better. You have much more draws on your time so when you really want to do something you will be more dedicated to it because you have to make that time count. You have more money to put towards to what you're interested in. You care less about the positive or negative reinforcement of others; you don't do what you do for praise and you don't care as much about criticism. Your brain is fully formed so it's not being confudled with hormones or structural changes. Your social situation is more stable and less crucial so it doesn't interfere as much with things you want to do.

Obviously there are things that make it harder too: Physically you're more prone to injury and slow healing. You're not as fast. Your eyes and ears might not be as sharp. You have much less free time and have to make moments count more. You haven't got the same dedicated support structure that most younger people have, and so on. But despite all of that the advantages still help older people win out.

So learn to do art better, practise writing, learn other languages, learn to dance, play guitar, weld, code, whatever you feel like! Have you got any experience learning something when you're older vs learning as a kid?

This week Gunwallace has given us a musical theme inspired by The Midnight Tea Party - Relaxing and exciting! A feathery, glittery explosion of laconic violin and electronica. We’re in heaven and we’re having a rave!

Topics and shownotes

Links

Gunwallace's newspost about Starting Late https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/jun/25/starting-late/

Featured comic:
Space Spaghetti - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/jun/24/featured-comic-space-spaghetti/

Featured music:
The Midnight Tea Party - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Midnight_Tea_Party/ - by Mystic Hand, rated T.

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tant