The 10,000 Hour Rule

World class violinists typically practice
for 10,000 hours, between aged 7 and 20
to get that skilled.
The better to play the violin in their dreams too.
It is not a penance, or a sentence in a prison,
but a skill for life, and discipline as freedom.

In countries ruled through television
children spend a similar amount of time
at the same age in front of the 2D box
of digital extra-terrestrial delights,
apprenticing for a non-vocation
of being kept in passive ease, in isolation.

Like L. S, Lowry I sometimes see myself,

as 'A man who paints', but unlike him
I only recently found the gift,
and the means of looking after it.
I wish I had found both earlier.