Sunday, March 9, 2014

Day thirty-three: Play a stringed instrument and/or do something you are terrible at.





















Apparently Durer apparently once said "A boy who practices painting too much may be overcome by melancholy. He should learn to play string instruments and thus be distracted to cheer his blood."

I bought a ukelele last November. I had purchased and then sold a guitar ten years prior, because it sat collecting dust in a corner after a few feeble attempts. I love music, but I am not a good musician. It doesn't make any sense to me. I'm a good dancer, I have a good sense of rhythm, there are numerous good singers in my family. I am bad at making good music. This can be disheartening, but I keep playing my ukelele anyway. I've come to realize that my practicing ukelele is not about my becoming a great musician, or a youtube sensation, or anything else like that. It's just for me to do something different. To shift gears in my brain. To do something just for fun, regardless of whether it goes anywhere.

It is hard to play when we feel like our play always has to result in some form of success. I have a problem with maxims about seeking failure, but I think there is merit in doing something just for the hell of it. It is another good way to get lost.

I read a great quote last night in Rebecca Solnit's book, "Or you get lost, in which case the world has become larger than your knowledge of it."

Try something you haven't done today. I hope you are bad at it. I hope it reminds you how big the world is and how much there is still to discover.

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