Learning new things...
May. 23rd, 2006 03:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annwfynI think, no matter what, I'm rather pleased I applied for my conservation course. Having to put together proof of manual dexterity made me pick up a pen and pencil, after having not bothered for years. It made me actually try drawing, which is something I never really bothered with because I wasn't naturally 'good' at it, and it made me actually learn new things.
Today I am experimenting with Celtic knotwork, and I rather like it. I'm incredibly bad at it, but that isn't the point.
I once knew a very cool guy called Simon Tcherniak, who is now an actor and who I scour the imdb for occasionally. We were travelling around eastern Europe together, and everywhere he went he carried a sketch book with him. I remember watching him sprawled out by a fountain in Croatia, gazing intently at the town square in front of him.
"Oooh..you draw?" I said. He grinned and said "very badly". I think I must have looked confused, because he explained further. When you're a kid, he said (or something like this), you aren't afraid to do things just because you're bad. You pick up an instrument and make squeaky noises with it. You scrawl with crayons. You try, and you mess around, and sometimes you get good at something and sometimes you don't, but either way you have a lot of fun and it makes you happy. Then, somewhere along the line, as you get older, you stop doing this. Adults, he said, will only do things if they are good at them. An adult paints if the adult in question knows he/she has the skill and/or talent. An adult plays the piano if he/she can play the Moonlight Sonata without hitting too many of the wrong keys.
Simon was rebelling against this. He was rebelling against the idea that you can't learn anything new when you're older, and more importantly he was rebelling against the idea that you had to be good at something in order to do it. He wasn't much of an artist, he said. On the other hand, he liked drawing. He liked his sketch book. He liked the memories in it. So he'd keep drawing.
I decided I liked the moral in that story and have been trying to hold on to it ever since.
Today I am experimenting with Celtic knotwork, and I rather like it. I'm incredibly bad at it, but that isn't the point.
I once knew a very cool guy called Simon Tcherniak, who is now an actor and who I scour the imdb for occasionally. We were travelling around eastern Europe together, and everywhere he went he carried a sketch book with him. I remember watching him sprawled out by a fountain in Croatia, gazing intently at the town square in front of him.
"Oooh..you draw?" I said. He grinned and said "very badly". I think I must have looked confused, because he explained further. When you're a kid, he said (or something like this), you aren't afraid to do things just because you're bad. You pick up an instrument and make squeaky noises with it. You scrawl with crayons. You try, and you mess around, and sometimes you get good at something and sometimes you don't, but either way you have a lot of fun and it makes you happy. Then, somewhere along the line, as you get older, you stop doing this. Adults, he said, will only do things if they are good at them. An adult paints if the adult in question knows he/she has the skill and/or talent. An adult plays the piano if he/she can play the Moonlight Sonata without hitting too many of the wrong keys.
Simon was rebelling against this. He was rebelling against the idea that you can't learn anything new when you're older, and more importantly he was rebelling against the idea that you had to be good at something in order to do it. He wasn't much of an artist, he said. On the other hand, he liked drawing. He liked his sketch book. He liked the memories in it. So he'd keep drawing.
I decided I liked the moral in that story and have been trying to hold on to it ever since.
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Very true
Date: 2006-05-23 02:38 pm (UTC)Generally children are encouraged to try anything, even when they do something they may not be good at they are not ostracised for it whereas adults often are.
But yes I have too many inhibitions about doing something I'm not good at.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-23 03:11 pm (UTC)On the other hand, while scrawling with crayons doesn't hurt anyone, making squeaky noises with an instrument can end up with an appointment at Casualty to have that instrument removed from some rather uncomfortable places...
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Date: 2006-05-23 03:23 pm (UTC)