Today’s prompt is “what is something you wish you knew how to do.”

Where do I begin!

Some things are pretty accessible. Like, a few years ago I wanted to try my hand at origami (modular, rather than traditional), and that’s pretty easy to do. You can use notebook paper (if you can cut it in a decent square), but I’m privileged, so I order Chiyogami paper (on Etsy; I like this store). I appreciate the precision required to fold exactly, and I find it soothing. I like the shapes.

Another really accessible thing that I took up was crocheting. I’ve knitted for years (on and off, not continuously), so crocheting seemed pretty within grasp. Over the holiday break, I started on a project and it’s going well! It looks like it’s supposed to look. I watched a couple videos on YouTube and followed the pattern. For patterns, I like this shop on Etsy.

I get art boxes every month so I can try out new techniques with different tools. There’s always something to learn with visual art. I’m giving some time to colored pencils again (they were my favorite in high school, so I’m revisiting, not learning something new).

As far as things that aren’t as within reach, hmm. Well, I’d like to learn to manage my anxiety away. Probably the best case scenario is to manage it down; I doubt it will ever go away. I’m working on it, however. I’d like to become more adept at project management, though I get exhausted whenever I think about diving into it further. I’d like to get an MFA in Art History, but there’s no earthly reason for it beyond satisfaction, and I’m not going to pay $100k+ to do that. I think it would be really neat to take a car apart and put it back together — probably because my dad spent lots of time doing just that in my youth, and it seems really fun. Not like a modern minivan, but something without any digital stuff inside. I’m not interested enough to pursue it (and there’s zero space for it), but it would be fun to learn. I’d like to make an arm chair someday. I’d like to read every book I own.

Barriers to learning new things boil down to interest, funding, and time. If you have all three of those, you can learn whatever you’d like to do. Without one of the three, you’re going to struggle in some capacity. Indeed, without one of the first two, you end up using up the third far more than you would otherwise. My own biggest barrier is time. That won’t always be so, which I look forward to. In the meantime, I’ll apply myself to smaller skills that I can happily absorb in a few hours and perfect over the rest of the time I have left.