
My life as a child chef - hhs
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/25/my-life-as-a-child-chef
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majos
Even if you don’t care about cooking, this article hits two themes that
repeatedly pop up on HN:

1\. how people first acquire and cultivate skills, and the less-clear-than-
you-might-think role of “seriousness” in doing so, and

2\. the stories of people who enjoy a confluence of interest, skill,
resources, and what looks like a fair amount of luck, and (spoiler alert)
still don’t achieve neat narrative-friendly success. I’m thinking of those
comments that go “yeah, but we don’t get to see all the stories of people who
did thing x and _failed_ ” (though in the end this story is less about failure
and more about eventually deciding other things were more interesting).

~~~
pnathan
A lot of the narrative structure reminded me of child musician almost-
prodigies. People who are feted, but sigh, and in the mid & late teens, move
on to other things.

The obsessiveness of the skill acquisition makes me link late childhood with
hyper-ability to acquire skills.

Anyway, just musings. Be interesting to see a development psychologist weigh
in here on the variety of normal childhood progressions.

