Patience alone is not a virtue but it’s a start

From the age of four I was taught to play violin, for about a decade. Misery was the name of this chapter in my life. The noises you have to make before they become a sound, then eventually, inadequately-performed music. Now one may think hey, it’s a privilege to be given such opportunity and I should’ve enjoyed the experience. I didn’t. It sucked and I hated it intensely. The experience taught me millions of things which I bundle up and threw in a box labelled irrelevant tosh except one. In order to get better at anything, one needs a mountain of patience and a spoonful of shame.

It’s wonderful to be told ‘hey it doesn’t matter if you are bad at it, just enjoy yourself while doing it’. But it’s a lie. A sweet lie. A lie I didn’t get and wish I had got as a sad infant when bowing with a heavy heart. Naturally, we all are bad at something, or in my case, many things. In most circumstances it’s ok. However if one is to engage in activities that involve others that nice lie simply won’t cut it.

I love to think that one learns most while having fun. Only if it was true. A bad driver will forever be a bad driver if s/he is Speeding around care-free in country lane. An enthusiastic fiddle-botherer can frail many nerves with noise only paralleled by torture. The same goes for visual art, perhaps less deadlier than driving irresponsibly or joyfully bowing with a musical instrument. It’s ok to be bad at something, but realise that one is, then be a little embarrassed by it and practice tenaciously.

However not many like to be embarrassed and few enjoy shame. These emotions can be crippling and they should not dominate in any circumstances. I don’t believe in shaming learners or throwing unwanted advices either. Neither am I suggesting that there’s no point doing anything unless you are good at it. No, no. Everyone has to practice to be good at anything really. One can practically express anything in any way imaginable as longs as it does not bring harm. In private. Anyone should be able to do so without fear of judgement and embarrassment. I refuse to suffer an uninvited guest who helps themselves to my mead and then have the audacity to slag it off. Having said that, if I am to get any better at home brewing I should have a different set of attitudes.

Sincerely speaking, I still have to tell myself to be patient while I work on an image. Truth be told, that no matter how satisfied I am with the end result there’s some sense of shame. I try, every time I pick up a brush, not to let it grow to a crippling size , to fight the temptation of covering it up with false sense of fun.