Learn Something New

The attempt to learn something new requires the ability to step over the hurdles of the unknown until they become familiar. During the summer, I take something new as a challenge to stretch and grow and the Summer of 2026 welcomed the ukulele instrument to be my learning challenge. This then opened a few new doors of discovery I did not expect. What are you learning? 

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Hi, I'm Tim D-Tellus. Welcome to the Tim D-Tellus experiment. I'm going to make a journal entry today about learning, and it's going to throw back to probably some of my younger years when I have to tell you I was not as disciplined in the process of learning. I had the opportunity to take piano lessons at the Worcester Performing Arts School of Music. And I had an instructor who truly was very talented, but I just didn't understand the level of talent, right? And so the downside is you take lessons and you just don't practice. Whatever it is in life, right, we have to be practicing. My lifelong friend uh Kevin McGuire, we met in college at the music hall. He taught me that practice makes permanent. You know, the whole idea that practice makes perfect, it's all about really the repetitiveness drills into you the permanency of what you're learning. So we could apply that principle to really any area of life of what you're learning and growing and studying repetitively. Well, I want to call back to music for a moment. So recently, I've had the desire. Uh, in the summer, I tend to pick up something new to learn, mainly to kind of stretch the mind. This time it was the fingers. It was learning the ukulele. Uh, on July 6th, a ukulele showed up at the house and started learning to play. And it's really great. You know, I'm approaching two months since the arrival of the instrument. Found a second ukulele at a local flea market. And so it's been great because I have two different size ukuleles now. One has a low G note. So it's been great to learn some songs on it. The motivation was A, learning something new. B, I have a granddaughter and a second granddaughter on the way. So I'm like, this would be fun to have a portable instrument to play with, you know, some music on with them at the fire pit, or when they come over to visit. That led to something else. And I didn't expect this. In the learning process, you know, when you open up door number one, there's door number two, and then behind door number two, there's door number three, and you're like, I didn't realize that the hall would continue the growing, the stretching, the learning. So I grew up playing piano. This brings us all the way back to the opening of this episode about the piano lessons at the Worcester Performing Arts School of Music. So piano is technically the instrument I play. My first instrument was the violin, which was amazing because it really taught me to play by ear and listen to some things because there's no frets. So you have to move your fingers to hit the note on pitch. But the piano is the instrument that I play. I've recorded a bunch of instrumental improvisational stuff. Uh, used to be in a few bands. I don't consider myself an accomplished musician, but I love music and I find it to be an outlet for creativity. And after the ukulele arrived and I started learning ukulele, actually, I played it today before I did this podcast. I jumped on the ukulele. I think my one of the fun things I like to do is actually tune it, and then I get to noodle around a little bit. But in learning the ukulele, it opened up another door for me of learning, and that was to go back to the piano and learn music that I did not know. And it's challenged me to learn some songs and stretch myself. And it's interesting, when you don't know something and you're learning it, it's frustrating, right? And so I'll listen to the song over and over, and even at times I'll be, you know, have laying in bed with the ear pods on, just going through the song. And it's ironic the frustration. There's like a wall of what I would call the non-familiar, right? So I'm it I'm not familiar with the piece in particular, but I am kind of interested in it and I'm learning it. And then once you break through that wall, and I I wish I could tell you when it was or when it is or how it happens, I think it's just kind of like stacking the repetitiveness up to the point that it then breaks the dam of the barrier, right? Whatever that breakdown of knowledge is, it just eventually like chisels it away. So I'm I'm setting all this up to make a single point. We don't know when it happens that we have a breakthrough. But what we do know is that we have to keep putting pressure on that learning process over and over and over, the repetitiveness or even the stubbornness to learn or the desire to learn. And then once you just keep stacking and stacking and stacking the learning, eventually that pressure is going to break through the unknown and you become familiar with it. And then you've discovered something new and it it reshapes and reframes everything. And so for me, with like learning a new song, it's like once you have finally learned it, it's like what was unfamiliar before is so familiar that now that that becomes kind of a resource of knowledge for what you're going to learn next. So I hope this encourages you. I know it's been a great journey for me. I'm still in it, uh, working through it and enjoying the process of learning, uh, specifically here on that music track of the ukulele and the piano. But whatever you're pushing to learn through, don't give up. And remember each day, live a life of impact right where you are. Thanks for listening. I'm Tim Detellus. And uh you can sign up for my next five email list at timdetellis.com. And I appreciate you spending some time together with me.