"jack of all trades, master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one"... really?
11:10 something I've always wondered about is why I've been into so many hobbies over the years and never stuck to one thing. like, take this thing I wrote on Cara:
Short timeline of my creative endeavors!
9-14 years old:
Legos, Lego Stop motion
middle school:
creative coding. Scratch games, Warioware DIY
16:
Fell in love with Photoshop / Illustrator during high school graphic design class
18:
Perler Beads
College:
Made a bunch of games with Godot, Unity, Blender, p5js
Post-college: Pixel art
Now: 2D traditional + digital! Acrylics, Infinite Painter!
Hoping to be more creative, for work or myself 😊💙
Then there's all the other "failed" hobbies like 3d printing, electronics, truenas crap, if you can even call it a hobby. Learning languages, too. Japanese, Korean..
Then with art.. sigh... I'm just not as into it as I was earlier in the year. I know it's something I actually enjoy, but maybe it wasn't art itself that I enjoyed, rather, the excitement of learning a whole new field?
Because I do this often. Switch to entirely new hobbies to learn, because it's okay if you "suck" at a new hobby because it's your first time trying it. There's no expectation from myself that I should be doing things a certain way, I'm just doing it and learning for fun. With art now, I feel like I'm at a point where I'm okay with where I'm at artistically, even if it's not the best. As long as I can get my idea out on paper.
I fear that a lot of my hobbies will end up this way. All I can ever say to people is, oh, "I used to do that too", I used to do a lot of things.
The plus side is that I know a little bit about a lot of things. But the things that really stick with me I feel like are so niche. Like, I know a bit about how to get different color consistencies in gouache paints. And a little bit on how to choose a good outfit, for myself at least. And how to debug a small circuit in electronics using the multimeter. Or random facts like that George Boole invented the boolean because he took a philosophy class, and realized he could formalize a true and false value in code.
But unlike George, how, when, why, am I gonna use all these things?
Sure, I did them for fun I guess. for the sake of learning something new. For learning more about life. and these skills will be with me for as long as I'm alive.
But my true concern is not being able to "constellate". Finding that one thing that I can do that I really love, that's so grand and...
Actually, maybe I don't have to? if I'm the kind of person to learn a lot of things here and there, so be it.
But actually, another concern I have is ADHD. I remember Uncle Alex talking about Aunty Amy and her many jobs, many hobbies. Its similar to me. The stuff I get into sometimes is so random. I'm just so enamored by the Japanese who can just focus on things for so long, and become really good at it. Like this one roller blade I follow in Instagram, Riki Nakano. He's so good at wizard skating. But I guess, seeing it now.. I get bored of his videos sometimes, because he always does more or less than the same thing. I remember feeling dull towards him once because he's just a "one trick pony". I can't be saying that when I can't even stop on my quad skates yet. and dude, he's actually good at something, what about me? The only thing I can say I'm at least "okay" at is programming, because I've done it for so long. that was my college major I chose because I loved to make games.
but like I'm so exhausted sometimes, of all this change. sometimes I just want to do something for a while and never get tired of it. maybe, I'm just not wired that way...
I will always have to use that ADHD trick Dr. K suggested to have 3-4 hobbies, and rotate them around when you get bored. it's like I'm in fricking school ðŸ˜
that said, I have no idea. this is just one of many things I've always been aware of but never knew how to "fix" or "solve".
for now, it's whatever. whatever makes me feel free.
20:33 "I think i just like learning about life". And that's not a bad "skill" to have.