If there's one thing I have no qualms in admitting, it's that when it comes to certain things in life, my work is DEFINITELY more than a little below par.
This isn’t written from a place of modesty.
It’s based on reality, and the indisputable finitude of the human skill-set.
This topic came up over the dinner table this week, mainly in relation to the recently announced plans to extend the age of compulsory maths education.
As someone who is not (and never has been) wired for numbers - but instead for creativity - I can say without doubt, that had it been mandated to study square roots for even a week more than the curriculum demanded at the time… I’m fairly sure my sanity would have sunk!
At this time, it was overly apparent that no amount of lesson time, revision or even extra tuition would ever make numeracy come naturally.
What’s more, I didn’t really want it to.
I appreciate there'll be many soap-box straddlers out there, who’ll say herein lies the problem.
The truth of the matter is, however, that the very sight of anything remotely arithmetic, makes my nerves bristle in a way that is hard to describe, but easy to distinguish (to those who know me) by the glazed, computer-says-no expression that it triggers.
The same mental block, it transpires, is also applied to public speaking.
Yes, I’ve officially come to realise that if it involves PowerPoint and an audience… it's a hard, hard pass from me.
What I find interesting about this whole idea of ‘knowing your limits’, is the differentials between those skill-shortfalls that seem to extinguish something within you (ie. The maths)…and those that ignite something so fierce, that the only thing more uncomfortable than persisting with ‘the thing’…is the prospect of never mastering 'the thing.'
This… this is what happened recently when I re-ventured into the world of piano tuition.
There's no doubt about it.
Currently… I suck!
Unlike with so many other things I suck at, however, the inability to coordinate chord and keys isn’t carving out a 'can’t cook, won’t cook' chasm, nor a maths-esque mental block.
Instead, I find myself now almost buying into the ‘practice makes perfect’ platitudes that I've long interjected with the angsty ‘yeh yeh’ of someone who, at some point, has proved otherwise.
So, what’s the takehome from all this, I hear you ask?
Well, I think it’s to do with the fact that acknowledging one’s ‘crapness’ is almost always a good thing... and not something to be veiled in platitudes of 'you got this' or 'try harder.'
The reason?
Because crap-ness either re-routes one’s energies away from the innate capability potholes that no amount of enforced learning can override.
Or…
It cultivated stubbornness. Determination. Passion.
For both these reasons, I’m inclined to think that those proclamations of ‘oh, I’m rubbish at…’ should be given more airtime than ‘good vibes only’ culture allows.
These observations should be read between the lines of and, where necessary, accepted for the hallmark of a creative (non-logical) brain that they sometimes are.
Comments