I truly feel that the moment I liberated myself from the ideas of ‘doing / learning things for productivity / success’, my relationship with everything changed. Like wdym I can learn typography without becoming a designer, learn to play an instrument without ever performing, and just.. be?
There’s a lot of info about ‘perfecting a craft’ but I’d bet it would help most people to just ‘dabble in a craft’
It’s not too late to learn the piano / guitar! Yes, even if you can’t read music. It’s not too late to learn to read music.
To learn to speak a new language. To learn to knit or sew. To learn to do woodworking. It’s perfectly fine to not do any of these things too. It’s perfectly fine to not want to do anything as well.
But if you have ever been curious about something, especially something different from the things you do for money, you can do anything
There’s a bunch of people who run a ‘mediocre music’ jam night at a bar near my home. The only rules are you’ve got to be mediocre
So far I’ve been afraid to go because I’ve been afraid I won’t be.. mediocre enough
Ahahahaha perfectionism is a helluva drug (and anyone brought up in high achiever societies may find it difficult to break old habits)
For folks in SF, look up Community Music Center. They have good classes in almost everything for adult learners of music. Including people with no experience at all. They also have scholarships for lower income folks. Two campuses, one in Mission & one in Richmond
Reminds me of one of my favorite albums, Puss 'n Boots. Norah Jones (piano player) decided to learn to play guitar, enlisted a couple of friends, then went onstage live and recorded it.
Of course, she's a stellar song writer too, so that doesn't hurt. But they do a cover of "Down by the River", solo and all (which strikes me as a real ballsy thing to do 
)
@skinnylatte I'm 27 and I just bought a second hand bass in March and started playing with it without expectations and I'm having fun !
Spent like 2 years hesitating to do so, I'm so happy I did it !
Please have fun people and learn a new instrument / a new hobby / anything you want, it's never too late 💙
@skinnylatte thinking of hobbies as a meditative activity, rather than a means to an end product or result
Fuck NO I DONT have an etsy 🥰
@skinnylatte Agreed. I struggle with any sort of rote learning or anything that involves making my body do stuff (I'm a bit dyspraxic).
The secret for me is to have low expectations. Good gods, I just played a chord! I can sometimes understand very basic written German! That's amazing! Not especially *useful*, but I'm hella impressed with myself!
@skinnylatte It brought to mind this bit from the song Scatman's World by Scatman John:
“I want to be a human being, not a human doing”
This verse has always spoken to me...
Living in a highly achievement-oriented society, it's often quite hard to enjoy things just for the sake of doing them. We inevitably face this inner urge to be good or even perfect at them. Though, is that always a good thing? Turns out, the American writer Kurt Vonnegut had some truly powerful insights surrounding this topic.
@skinnylatte one of my most meaningful art classes in college was called “digital sketchbook”. we had to use all kinds of different pieces of technology to create are but we were forbidden from finishing anything.
really a meaningful experience to be forced to work that way
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