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They practice for hours and hours and learn songs by shredders.

Shake it off dude.

I'm 41 years old and I began playing a year ago. I've had enough people tell me that you'll never get good if you didn't start when you were 12 years old to fill a metro bus, not to mention all the downsides of being a middle-aged beginner.

If I let myself go where you're describing going I'll give up; but the one huge upside of being well on the way to geezerhood is that I've learned not to go there. In fact, not knowing not to go where you're describing going is why I didn't manage to do a lot of things a lot earlier in life.

Only thing matters is to be better today than you were yesterday.

When you watch people who are wildly better than you, look to find one thing they can do that you CAN do and steal it. It'll add up eventually.

Insane speed is one thing, but its really just a style. Its all about what you want. I think Slash is more musical than 80% of shredders, and he probably has 3/5 of the cops. The way SRV and Hendrix used chords to solo as well as phrasing (as well as their chops) put them just as high up the "scale" as crazily fast shredders. Its all relative. Then you have Bob Dylan or the Edge...!

Don't worry about it.

Learning to play fast is purely a physical skill and should be trained as such. Grab a lick, practice it and keep bumping the metronome up. Learn your scales and get them up to tempo. If something is preventing you from going further make sure you understand why that is, and how you can fix it. I truly believe anyone can learn to shred, at any age as long as you're health is doing fine.

Now actually using this skill to do anything interesting (or atleast something more interesting then running up and down the mixolydian scale) seems to be vastly more difficult...

The absolute best response to shred guitar I've seen was a video where the guitarist grabbed a drill with six picks in a star formation. He smiled and used the drill to shred like a maniac!!

BTW

It only takes one note to make the blues.

It's a very sweet sound that can make the audience cry!

The absolute best response to shred guitar I've seen was a video where the guitarist grabbed a drill with six picks in a star formation. He smiled and used the drill to shred like a maniac!!

Sounds to me like the antics of Paul Gilbert

Yeah, the key is to not get caught up in the technique. Playing fast is only useful as a device to communicate to your audience. It is helpful and it isn't exclusive of sounding good (note George Benson) but a lot of people think it is the goal behind everything. If you want to become fast then all you have to do is refine your technique (make sure you are holding the pick right, moving your fingers right, using the correct muscle groups for motion) and practice for hours a day. Learn the fretboard up and down. While you are doing this make sure all your influences aren't only your influences because they play fast but make sure you are learning the musical side of everything. A while ago I was trying to learn to play fast but then I realized that none of the guitarists I listened to were "fast" guitarists. They were Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, and a bunch of others but everyone of them wouldn't be described as fast players. So if all you want to do is play fast then you can know that it is a very attainable goal. But if your goal is to be able to touch someone with your music then try to remember that as you practice your scales and always keep that in mind so you can have that clarity of vision.

IMVHO, playing hemidemisemiquavers at 300bpm is showing how "good" you are, not how good your music is.
I have a piece of video of two young lads playing Misirlou with a piece of card stuck to the blades of a hand mixer.

Yeah, there is definately a limit.

Misirlou is actually a good example of a good fast song (even thought it would be slow for shredder standards)