I got my degree in public speaking, but as a part of that I also had to take a bunch of bullshit theater arts "electives." Turns out one of the dance instructors used to be the lead backup dancer for the Randy Rodgers Band. I didn't know this until I had already taken two of his classes. After that, I took more. I later graduated with a minor in "Country Western Dancing" (only in Texas). Though I still maintain I have no rhythm, and outside of country music, I simply can't dance. (I went for the easy minor, because I was good at it... And yes, I was already married when I minored in it, so I wasn't trying to get laid -- trust me, my wife is as hot as I can get.) It was one of those things where the more you know, the more you realize what you don't know. I always wanted to learn how to dance. Or maybe that's just "white guy syndrome." Focus: What have you always wanted to learn how to do? Why? Did you ever get "almost there"? Alt. Focus: What's over-rated? Spent all that time learning to play guitar, got laid a few times in college off it, and now all the sudden playing the chords to Yesterday doesn't have the same effect in that project managers' meeting?
Focus: I've always wanted to learn to play golf and guitar really well. In fact, as part of my life reboot, which I am calling 'VI 2.0: New and Improved with 134% More Awesome," I have been taking lessons to learn to do both well. Why? With golf, that's easy. I love the game, have played it for many years, but never really learned to do it well. At the end of last season, I got so fed up with my play that I stopped. Early this year, I resolved to really buckle down and learn to do it. It's a lot of fun when you know what you're doing. Lessons have gone well so far, but tomorrow is my first round of the season, so we shall see. Either way, I will continue taking lessons. With guitar? I can't imagine a life without music. I've always been a musician and songwriter. Like with golf, I got fed up with my inability to get some of the sounds in my head out through my hands, so I've been taking jazz lessons for the last year. I've learned to read music and learned a hell of a lot, but I certainly have a long way to go. Ultimately, it is a journey with no end destination, I will never be as good as I want to be. But I will get closer. Alt Focus: Practicing law. There are parts of it that I'm glad I know how to do, but learning to be a day to day lawyer? Very overrated. Most of the skills are very specific to practicing law and don't really carry over to anything else, some do. I would say it's the one skill that people upon finding out I am a lawyer say 'OHHH, I always wanted to do that...' Yeah, no you don't. Overrated.
I always wanted to learn how to play piano. To be able to sit down and start playing some classical composition seems like it would be even more relaxing than listening to it. Ive played guitar in a band for almost ten years but damn I'd love to play piano.
I always wanted to learn how to juggle. Whenever I try its usually with some kind of produce, oranges or whatnot. They fall to the floor and smoosh or get dirty and I get frustrated and stop. Im just not coordinated enough. You know whats overrated? Being left-handed. People always assume theres some special quality to left-handed people. You know what those qualities are? Smudging everything you write on paper and not being able to cut properly with scissors.
Maybe if they didn't give us those dumbass green handled scissors in kindergarten, I wouldn't have had to learn how to cut right-handed, now would I? I'd stare at the ease all the righties (that's what I call them) could cut, jealousy oozing through my veins. So I showed them, I showed them all! I became part of their self-righteous club Juice. But just with scissors. And mascara. I can do that right-handed as well. And you're right, this is so true: Focus: Sing. I'd love to be able to sing. You really don't want me to. So I limit it to my car and bedroom. And I've mentioned my efforts at learning the piano before by taking a class in college. Despite getting an A, and memorizing and playing a nice musical piece for my final, I wouldn't know where to start if I sat down in front of one today. And I don't even care any more. Really. Sniff.
I am one of God's chosen people (left handed) and have had to deal with all of the inconveniences for the last 51 years. I have learned to do many things right handed - golf, use a micrometer, read a vernier caliper, etc...When it comes to using right handed scissors with your left hand it is actually very easy to get a good cut. The trick is when you are cutting pull your thumb towards the palm of your hand so the blades tighten against each other causing a good shear. Your natural inclination is to push your thumb away from your hand which actually splits the scissor blades and bends what you are cutting rather than shearing it. If you use scissors with your right hand the natural inclination of pushing away from your hand with the thumb tightens the blades which is why they always shear. It takes a little getting used to, but it becomes habit very quickly. If I try and use a pair of left hand scissors (they do exist) I end up with the same problem of not cutting the paper because I automatically pull my thumb away from my hand causing the blades to separate. Sorry, no solution for smudged hands from writing.
Focus: after fumbling our way through China, I wish I had kept up with my Cantonese studies when I was a child. My few meager phrases were not sufficient to be of significant help to us in the less-English-speaking parts of Hong Kong.
I am also one of the afflicted(lefty) and compound this with being right eye dominant and you have years of gun range frustration, followed by more years of gun range frustration when I had to teach myself to shoot rifles right handed. This feels like trying to swing a golf club with the opposite arm. Its that awkward. My grandmother told me she was born left handed but they pretty much beat it out of you in grade school. This was back in the 1930's.
Nice juggles Learning to juggle is not that hard, if you practice a couple basics. I got called the class clown a lot growing up, so I thought it would be funny if I learned how to juggle when I was in 8th grade. I am not very good - all I can do is juggle three similar-sized, roundish objects. But I could juggle those things for 10 minutes, if necessary, even if it's been months since I juggled anything. I learned from a book that came with 3 square bean bags, called "Juggling for the Complete Klutz." I think this was their first book, that spawned a whole line of "Klutz" books and toys. A few key tips: 1- use something like those sqaure bean bags that won't roll away (or ruin, like your oranges). Hacky sacks will work, but don't use corn hole type flat bean bags. 2 - practice this over and over and over until you can do it perfectly, and don't move on until you can: gently toss one bag from right hand to left and back, holding your forearms parallel to the ground. Look straight ahead, and the height of the arc should be a little over your head so it's disappearing from your sight line momentarily. Just that, just one bag, over and over, back and forth. 3 - once you can do that, start with one bag in each hand, and do the same thing, tossing the next bag while the first is in the air. Practice this while standing close to and facing a wall, to keep from throwing them too far out. (Or stand at the edge of a cliff for the same effect.) This is the hardest part, but once you can do that, adding the third bag is easy, because you've learned everything at that point. You just have to get the feel of how to toss the second one in an arc just inside the first. Focus: I took Spanish in high school and college and made A's. I remember some vocabulary, and I can read somethings, but I can't speak it for shit. I have tried on different occasions to learn to do that. I completely lose interest after listening to or reading the material for about a week.
OHHHH, one I just remembered: I'd love to learn how to dance, I mean really dance. I have several dances I do in the privacy of my own home (a happy dance, angry dance, coffee is brewing and almost done dance), but they all essentially come down to me looking like I'm having a seizure. I NEVER dance in public, mostly because I don't want to be responsible for the destruction of humanity. In short, I wish I could really dance. I think that would be a lot of fun. No, I'm not kidding.
I'm a pretty solid musician. I'm above average at guitar and piano and have written songs on both for years. But I've always wanted to learn/be better at production. I've dabbled with recording, and now that I'm into electronic music, I want to progress with composing/producing, etc... There is just a steep learning curve and I really need to apply myself, and its frustrating to not bridge the gap as quickly as you would like. My ultimate goal when I am older is to have a home studio and be skilled enough where friends and my kids could come and record. But before I sink money into that, I need to actually build the skillset first... Additionally, I've always thought it would be really cool to be multi-lingual. I used to be nearly fluent in Spanish, now I'm barely conversational from lack of use, but I'd love to pick up another language as well. I work in a fairly international office and I always get annoyed how little emphasis there is on secondary languages in the US growing up. Granted, I've never lived abroad where immersion helps expedite the process tremendously, but still. ALT-FOCUS: Dancing. VI reminded me. I'm a very good dancer. I think I'm blessed genetically with rhythm as my Mom is a good dancer, two of my younger sisters danced seriously (enough that one is a dance major and will be a professional in a short time), and being a musician helps with timing and all that. Couple that with having a few black friends in college that basically mocked me until I could hold my own at parties or on a dancefloor, and I know what I'm doing. Well cue now to being 28 and its kind of a worthless skill. Its great that I can pick up any formal dance pretty quick and I won't be needing to take dance lessons like some people for my first dances when I get married, but otherwise, I never use it. I can pull it out at weddings, but then I look like a jackass amongst awkward white people dancing. Or people think you're showing off which is just as lame. Unfortunately, given my normal weekend destinations, I don't get to grind all over chicks anymore, wasting that skillset. TL/DR Humblebrag about being a good dancer but not really having opportunities to drop panties with it.
I really want to learn how to build furniture. My job is 80% office oriented with some field work. I really enjoy working with my hands and I like doing rough carpentry like framing, fencing, deck building, etc. I imagine rough cutting 2x10's and sistering them together vs shaping sticks of wood into a table are worlds apart, but as soon as I can get my garage organized this summer. I'm going to start giving it a go.
Yeah I taught myself how to juggle. It was one of the very few times in my life where there was a pronounced can't do something now I can moment. The muscle memory you always hear about just clicked after a few days of trying. I also took the time to learn how to solve a rubik's cube. That was always more impressive than juggling. I wish I had stuck with guitar. I probably learned maybe a 3rd of the basics. Like many of my generation, the real pay off was years of practicing off and I moved on to video games.
In the theme of 'I've always wanted to learn to play x instrument'; I've had a hankering the last couple of years to learn to play the electric bass. The father of an ex of mine once offered to teach me, but for various reasons that offer isn't likely to be taken up anytime soon. Why the electric bass I'm not sure; for some odd reason it just seems like an instrument that I'd enjoy playing and probably wouldn't be that hard to learn.
I need to learn about cars. I know a lot about computers. I'm not afraid of breaking things when I'm messing with .conf files. When I come across a problem, it doesn't matter how complicated it is; I Google it, fart around with it, Google some more, fart around some more, and eventually come across a solution. When something is fucked up with my car, I'm completely lost and throw my hands up at anything more complicated than changing the oil. It shouldn't be any different; I know lots of people who can do pretty much anything with cars. I'm probably going to take a community college class on car maintenance just to get some rudimentary skills. I don't need to replace my engine, but I'd like to be able to say, "I can do that if I need to."
Cars aren't that much different than computers, really. I never replaced a tie-rod or suspension arms before I did it about a month ago; I looked up a video on youtube and said to myself, "that doesn't look so hard, I can do that." The only issue was that I didn't have all the proper tools, so I had to do the work at my Dad's, and working on things like this with him is trying, to say the least. But I got it done in a couple of hours and saved myself about $600 dollars. If you have decent mechanical aptitude, you should be alright as long as you don't try to make an engine overhaul your first thing. Focus: There are so many things I wish I knew how to do I wouldn't even know where to begin. Dancing, playing an instrument, singing, fucking, I pretty much wish I had every skill.
I'd also like to learn how to build furniture, or just woodworking in general. Nothing gives me a more raging boner than a guy who works with word (tree wood, not penis wood - although, to be fair, that helps with boners too), and I realized that it's kind of a case of "lusting after someone you really just want to be." I don't know why I think it's so cool, but I do. Maybe it's the intersection of being creative and practical. I haven't tried because, for some reason, I've built it up in my head to be something that's really intimidating and complicated. And power tools make me nervous - I can barely operate my drill without me worrying I'm going to somehow break my entire apartment building. But I do a ton of other artsy crafty things that I think would translate pretty easily to it, and I actually have the space in my apartment to work on something. I just don't know where to start. Kind of related: When I was in high school, my friends and I got really high and convinced ourselves that we could figure out how to build a chair. It was a disaster, obviously, but unbeknownst to me, my friends submitted our efforts to a local art exhibit years later as a conceptual sculpture and it was accepted.
Most of my desires to learn to do stuff is because I hate feeling helpless. I am really good at taking care of small repairs around the house and maintaining the yard and making things grow, but that's pretty easy, non technical stuff. The main thing I really want to know how to do work on my own car. There's a reason people get bent over a barrel by mechanics so often...because it is an invaluable skill and you are at their mercy when your car is fucked. Cars are such an investment, too. At least in this city, you have to have one if you want to survive. We own a couple of used cars with high mileage and I'm sure you know that the repairs start to pile up after a certain point. I just had my brakes completely replaced (thank you Jesus that I have a brother in law who is pretty good with cars and inquisitive enough to figure out how to do stuff himself) that was quoted at $1100. I ended up only paying about $530 after buying all the parts and having a "real" mechanic do the calipers. I also want to play the electric guitar, bluesy style. Something about that music really does it to me. I played a little bit on my dad's acoustic growing up but never got into it seriously. Now, I have an acoustic guitar that my mom got for free when some tenants moved out and left a huge pile of crap behind. I had it re-stringed and tuned but I really just don't care about acoustic. I know I need to use it as a learning tool if I actually want to make any progress and learn how to play but I can't seem to make myself.