The art of diplomacy, patience, and the ability to stay calm in the face of frustration, would be good skills to acquire. I am sure if i was a more noble person my first inclination would be to want those skills.
In reality my heart yearns to be able to play the piano, or speak fluent French, or be the kind of man who dare not take his shirt of in public for fear of making people gasp. At how amazing my body is — not in horror.
I have done some things in my time that have made me think that i would like to do this properly. This feels like a thing i would enjoy. I once did a few days fencing lessons, an elegant sport that made me feel as if i might be able to do this. I felt as if i understood it and that with practise i would be able to do it.
As a rule sports do not connect with me, i don’t see the point or it all seems a lot of effort for very little reward. I subscribe to my grandfathers view, if those 22 men all want a football so badly — give them one each. I do not have some secret desire to hold aloft the World Cup or an Olympic Gold. I can hardly be bothered to watch a full match of anything let alone participate.
I have a hankering to take singing lessons. i can sing and have done it a bit. I am aware that with training and practise it could be better and it would be interesting to discover what this instrument can do. My problem has always been that the moment i hear someone good i think ‘now that is a voice’, and it is better to leave it to people like that.
Sometimes it is time or money that stops you pursuing things. I once had a helicopter flying lesson as a birthday treat and i did some of it and i took control and flew it and then realised that we were not going to achieve very much in one lesson.
The cost of actually obtaining a heliciopter pilot licence and the very genuine belief that i would never be given a helicopter for a chrismtas present no matter how good i had been, made it all a bit pointless.
I asked the pilot to use the lesson to show me what he could do, so we did the whole skimming hedges and cutting the engine and other little thrills, because i figured that was a more exciting and interesting use of our time and we both had fun.
All the things i can do that i would describe as skills are things i have learnt over many years. I spent a large chunk of my life acting, presenting and hosting because it was what i did and you kind of learn on the job by watching, listening and doing.
I know about computers because i once landed a job (more of a right place, right time than any kind of plan) and along the way i learnt by watching, listening and doing.
I know about gardening because the house we own had a garden so we had to learn how to look after a lawn, how to not kill plants, how to plant a hedge, how to build a greenhouse. Once you have done things wrong you work how to do them better next time.
I can drive a car because once you can, you do and the more you do the better you get at it.
Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers examines the theory that to acheive mastery of a skill, or to become a world class expert, takes ten thousand hours, or roughly ten years of practise. I think that also assumes that you are any good at it in the first place.
maybe that is why as we get old older it becomes more difficult to teach the old dog new tricks, we know it takes time, time runs out almost as fast as inclination.
a blog less ordinary 