The Woman Who Is Afraid to Learn New Things

Do you, too, suffer from "sophophobia"? My very first comic strip, and an Oldster Magazine Friday open thread on resistance to learning new things...

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Readers,

Behold: My first comic strip!

It’s about my resistance to learning new things, which seems to worsen as I get older. Apparently it’s not just me. “Sophophobia,” literally a fear of learning, is quite common, especially as we get older and more set in our ways, and find ourselves faced with unfamiliar technologies and schools of thought.

In midlife and later, it can be hard to go back to being a beginner, to tolerate not already knowing; to open your mind to something unfamiliar; to have the patience to endure a slow and possibly mystifying new process; to muster the humility to surrender to trial and error—here and there potentially messing up, and making what feels like a fool of yourself.

What about you? Are you also resistant to learning new things? Does it get worse as you get older? Tell me in the comments…

According to a recent WebMD article by osteopath Melinda Ratini, there’s more to it: “Because some older people are more worried about their memory and ability to learn, they have more anxiety about it. This anxiety can interfere with their performance and make it harder to focus on learning.”

I remember being in my 20s and overhearing two older women on the subway talking about some game they were considering playing with friends. One of them joked, “But then I’d have to read the instructions and learn how to play it, and I hate learning new things!” They both laughed, knowingly.

I sort of got it then (especially since, at the time, I was the worst player in a weekly poker game, who could never fully grasp the rules). I really get it now that I’m in my late 50s, and there is so much new information in the world that just the thought of absorbing more of it makes my head spin.

Theoretically, I like the idea of acquiring new knowledge, but when it comes to actually taking it in I’m daunted, and tend to drag my feet or pass altogether. What about you?

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Here’s my comic strip:

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Ironically, producing this comic involved learning TWO new things:

1. Some beginner-level cartooning, via a six-session course I’m really enjoying called “Comics for People Who Can’t Draw” led by artist and writer

   Aubrey Hirsch
   (she writes the excellent newsletter
   Graphic Rage with Aubrey Hirsch
   ).

2. The basics of Canva, a popular graphic design program/app/what-ever-the-hell-you-call-it. (Aka “Twenty-first century digital cartooning. On the computer.”)

While I’m proud of this comic, I know it could be a lot better—story-wise, drawing-wise, and design-wise. I could take my teacher’s and classmates’ smart feedback, clean it up, and go deeper with it, maybe turning it into a full-on graphic personal essay. But that would require an investment of more time into scripting and drawing and editing, which I don’t have right now. I decided to instead share with you what is truly a beginner effort—to go with “good enough” for now, and to use it as a prompt for today’s open thread. (Look at me, allowing myself to be—and be seen as—a beginner at something in my old age!)

I do plan to keep at this, because I find every aspect of it to be great fun. Even the learning curve, when I put aside my fear and surrender to being a complete newbie. (Soon I’ll go back to taking artist

Wendy MacNaughton

’s Sunday “Draw Together Grown Ups Table” workshops.)

It occurs to me that—to paraphrase Dorothy Parker—I prefer “having learned” to learning. But maybe that’s not true. When I get over my resistance, I really do enjoy the act of learning.

Okay, now it’s your turn:

Are you also resistant to learning new things? Does it get worse as you get older? Tell me in the comments…

Thanks as always for reading, chiming in thoughtfully (I frequently receive compliments on Oldster’s responsive, supportive audience!), and for your support. 🙏

-Sari