How the heck do people pick up hobbies and stick to them? In the past three months, I’ve taken up archery and violin lessons. I have since given up the lessons (half an hour on a Friday seemed half an hour too far) and alas, next week holds the fateful day in which I return my bow to the club.
(It’s not the fact that I’m bad – though I am. It’s not the fact that I feel as one with Robin Hood when I draw back my longbow – though I do. It’s the time. It’s the money. It’s the fact that there are other things.)
Writing and reading have been my longest lasting passions. (And will be always be so, I am quite sure. I am attached to them. In the way you are attached to limbs. Your limbs.) Crocheting vies for a third place – I gave it up because the great majority of my family and friends now have blankets made for them. (Also, I’ve lost my crochet hook.)
Perhaps it is my curse – to always be trying new things and never sticking to them permanently. (There’s just so many other things.)
OTHER THINGS I’D LIKE TO TRY:
- learning to fix a car (I STILL HAVEN’T DONE THIS MY WORD WHAT THE HECK)
- tap dancing
- carpentry
- some sort of engineering for a day
- wind surfing. properly
- some sort of martial arts
- learning Chinese
- painting with watercolours. properly. not DABBLING but full on Miss Potter at the beginning of the old Peter Rabbit VHS tapes
- living in Mongolia
- fencing
NAVEL GAZING
Sometimes I have this horrible feeling that I’m terrible human being and shouldn’t spend a moment of time on myself. It tells me that life is about others and never about me, therefore hobbies are worthless. Also, I should go to India and volunteer at an End of Life House that I once saw on a documentary about happiness.
No doubt it would be a sobering trip and very worthwhile, but as I don’t foresee myself doing this in the future (I can taste the absolute GUILT in my mouth. It’s like a stomach ache. If you had a stomach ache in your mouth. And you could taste it.) I will have to turn my focus to other things, closer to home. (Like helping an old lady across the street. I did this once.)
Life is about loving others, it’s about the giving. But I also believe it’s about savouring what we’ve been given – beautiful, wonderful things to admire, a sense of adventure, and a thirst for knowledge.
Solution? Don’t be self-centred. Don’t admire your navel too much. But love and get on with life and also, probably, maybe definitely – in the winter, take up fencing.
WAYS FENCING BENEFITS HUMANITY
- if someone near me is attacked and there is a blade/longsword/fencing sword/pokey stick thing nearby … well, I can launch into action
- if I time-travel with someone into a time where swords are plentiful and not just prospective wall ornaments … well, I can launch into action
- if there is a MAN EATING MOSQUITO near an ENTIRE SCHOOL BUS OF HELPLESS BABIES and the only weapon available is a sword … I mean, I could launch into action. Or I’d scream in a dignified way. And offer my blood as bait and lead it away. I’d die. It would be a sacrifice. I’m sure I’d look spiffing and graceful doing it. Delicate and lady-like.
- … also why is there a bus full of babies and where is the adult supervision?!
- if I am required to yank a grown man from the edge of a cliff he has accidentally nearly stumbled over due to taking a selfie (#closeshave #foiledagain) … I would have gained some speedy nifty footwork and core strength due to fencing.
Thank you. It’s logic. It’s superb. Call it destiny, fate, or the desire to dance nimbly whilst wearing a trimmed beekeeping veil as a visor and wafting a sword like a sparkler, I see it looming in my future.
I can’t wait.
of words & books 
“if there is a MAN EATING MOSQUITO near an ENTIRE SCHOOL BUS…”
or
if there is a MAN-EATING MOSQUITO near an ENTIRE SCHOOL BUS…”
🙂
Love your posts!
Thank you. Not QUITE as terrible as ‘Let’s eat Grandma!’ but veering in that direction.
HOWEVER I have a grudge against compound nouns and compound noun and adjectives and all that sort of thing. It’s the hyphens. They disturb me. I object to them and they, me.
I took fencing for a couple of weeks the summer before high school. I had always loved sword fighting and swashbuckling from stories and wanted to try it. I soon quit, because:
I was in terrible shape and almost threw up the first day from dehydration .
I realized fencing would soon become expensive. Very expensive.
I realized that it was all about scoring points in an artificial manner completely removed from the practical concerns of a real combat. And thus it had little relevance to what the heroes in my adventure stories were doing and even less to what was done in history.
So what I want to do is join a HEMA school! Learn historical swordfighting as it was really done in dueling or combat scenarios, with research and cooler weapons and more practical concerns. One focused on Italian Renaissance swordsmanship just opened near me, and I want to check it out!
BLESS YOU FOR THIS!! I’VE LOOKED IT UP AND THERE IS ONE NEAR-ISH TO ME!!!!!!!!!! This is simply splendid. Blessings and chocolate and libraries and claymores on your head!!
You SHOULD check it out!! And blog about it. I’d read the STUFFING out of series on that.
I learned a lot about HEMA from Matt Easton’s videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/scholagladiatoria