Maybe That's Why I'm Posting So Often

By: Michael Akerman

It might be because of the New Year.

You see, I've been on a sort of kick, if you will, of self-improvement. I've been practicing guitar (I suck) and trumpet (my embouchure sucks, but that's about it. I'm pretty good otherwise), and, oddly enough, I've been practicing art, which is something I've traditionally been very bad at, and rather dismissive toward. As I explain on one of my postings at the aforelinked site, while I'm quite skilled at describing an imagined scene, I'd like to be able to draw it.

I think people are far too content to maintain their own status quo. I've certainly been guilty of it for the past, oh, twenty years or so (and I'm sure I'll fall into that pattern again in the future, but I'll try to avoid it). After all, reaching too far is uncomfortable, even if it increases our flexibility.

But I think it is important to try new things and to learn new skills. I suppose it's a question of whether one wishes to be a Renaissance man or a specialist, but I still don't think that's really the case. After all, a specialist is focused in one area, but cannot study it all the time. It is possible, and maybe necessary, to have hobbies that are enjoyable and build new skills even if one is a specialist.

So, I've resolved to build my skills in the arts and music. I've been trying to push myself by drawing difficult subjects (faces, for instance, are bloody hard to draw), for instance, and I find I'm quite enjoying how quickly I've improved. I think I also need to push myself to exercise on some kind of regular schedule, especially since I no longer have a gym class, though I've never liked how slowly physical improvement happens.

Dear readers, treat yourself to something new. Pick up a guitar, or write a glowing description of a beautiful scene in excruciating detail, or craft as fine a poem as you can make, or make a difficult drawing as well as you can, or come up with puns about random words, or think of all the words that rhyme with a random word: all of these train several useful skills (especially musical training). You don't have to show anyone your work: tear the drawings to pieces if you're not proud of it, though you might want to think twice about that, because keeping past work is good way to see how much you've improved.

I think we really ought to learn something new every day.

By my hand,
~Michael Akerman