Today, another read of something Ferret has written and how it speaks to me.
In this one, Ferret talks about trying something new, in this case a podcast. And his fears that the first ones will be poorly done, with mistakes, imperfections, poor judgement calls... you know, the results of being new. In time, he'll develop patterns, skills, tricks, and better judgement. But the first ones will probably be rough.
In high school, I remember my daughter sitting in the car next to me, bemoaning the fact that she would probably never be as good at this one thing as one of her friends. Now, the friend only had this one thing that she was really good at (in the context of our conversations, at least). This friend spent all her practice time on this one thing, and was super-good at it. My daughter, on the other hand, had a half-dozen hobbies she was working on, including this thing. And to be honest, she was pretty good at all of them. She was 'good' at all of them. But the friend was 'great' at this one. My daughter couldn't see being 'great'. I asked her if she was interested in giving up all of her other hobbies to focus on that one thing, and if maybe then she could be 'great' at it. She admitted that maybe she wasn't interested in paying that price for greatness; all of her hobbies were important to her, not just that one.
I am a 'Former Gifted Kid', with all the attendant baggage that comes with it. I was always pretty good at most things I picked up, almost instantly. I didn't have to work hard just to be 'okay' at things; they came naturally. I played piano, studied martial arts, sang, and other stuff. And sometimes I veered toward 'great' in these things; but just with a minimal effort, I got to start off at 'good'. There were things I would have to start at 'poor' with, like, say, dancing. I'm not a natural dancer; I'm in the 'poor but can follow directions if they are repeated enough times' category. But being 'poor' at it was hard, so I quit quickly, or even just didn't start on those things. I avoided the things that would take significant effort just to keep up with others. Or I started the things, and then quit when it demanded effort. For instance, I wrote a lot of poetry, briefly. I enjoyed it, but it was bad poetry. So I stopped writing, until many years later.
