Summer begins tomorrow, so here’s some ‘Monday Motivation’, an encouragement to try something new this summer. . . just for fun. A new hobby, sport, or activity? Something that you’ve always dreamed of trying ‘someday’? Here’s an example; I began learning to paint last year, with watercolours. The idea had been at the back of my mind since childhood, ever since I saw my first watercolour paintings. It was a creative pursuit that I’d always wanted to try… someday.
When I finally started this art adventure, my ‘art-venture’ as I call it, it was as a form of DIY or do-it-yourself treatment for certain symptoms of my rare disease. First off, it was a DIY movement-therapy for my right hand and arm which are particularly impacted by CRPS – Complex Regional Pain Syndrome – and its multiple forms of chronic pain.
Second, I was hoping that learning to paint – being “intensely engaged in learning and acquiring new skills and abilities” (1) – would help me harness brain plasticity (1) to prevent any worsening of my CRPS-related ‘mild cognitive impairment’ (MCI). I don’t want the MCI that stole my beloved career in bioethics and healthcare, at the end of 2018, to get any worse than it already is.
Before talking about learning to paint, I suppose I should mention that I’ve always been competitive about education and learning; with myself, not so much with others. I was on the Dean’s Honour List all through high school, a university Certificate in Human Resources Management, a bachelor’s degree, and even my masters’ degree – in bioethics. I also finished at the top of the class for all my officer training courses with the Air Force reserves. You get the idea!
Because of this self-competitive streak, I was hesitant to take the first step towards my lifelong dream of learning to paint. Then there was that fact that, even before my right hand and arm were impacted by CRPS, I couldn’t even draw a stick figure! How would I paint, with cognitive issues and problems with my dominant hand and arm? All these roadblocks, it turns out, were ones that I put in my own way – until I read a story about an experience that Kurt Vonnegut had while working on an archaeological site in his teens. (2)
That story gave me ‘permission’ to try something new just for fun, and to be ‘bad’ at it. And as soon as I tried watercolour painting, I fell in love with it. It didn’t matter that I was horrible at first, because I was just having so much fun. I’d be awestruck just watching the water mix with the pigments, the colours, on a blank page.
It’s been less than a year and a half since I first picked up a paint brush, and I’ve already had many of my watercolour paintings in art exhibitions – both in galleries and online or virtual exhibitions. I’ve donated several of my paintings to charity fundraising events, and each of them was sold by these organizations. So I suppose I can’t be all that bad, even after a relatively short time.
My first paintings, though, were appallingly atrocious. They weren’t complete failures, I told myself, because I was learning something from each one of them. Soon I could see some slight improvements, and then a few more. Then one day I painted something that turned out more or less the way that I’d imagined it. I was thrilled!
Because I’d given myself ‘permission’ to be horrible at painting, particularly while I was learning, I’d taken all the pressure off myself. It didn’t matter if my bunny looked like a box with ears, as long as I learned something from the painting. Even if all I learned was how NOT to do something, there was still a lesson to be found in that.
What was that story – from Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s teenaged years – that inspired me to finally try watercolour painting? That encouraged me to allow myself to fail, to go start something knowing full well that I would be ‘bad’ at it?
Novelist Kurt Vonnegut Jr. learned a valuable lesson at age 15 that shaped his life and may shape yours.
According to a story in “Bits and Pieces,” he spent a month working on an archaeological dig.
At lunch one day one of the archaeologists asked Vonnegut a bunch of questions to learn more about the young man.
Vonnegut said he participated in theater, choir, enjoyed art and played the violin and piano.
The archaeologist was impressed, but Vonnegut then admitted that he wasn’t “any good at any of them.”
The archaeologist then gave Vonnegut the lesson that changed his life.
He said: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them.
I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”
Vonnegut then admitted he went from someone who hadn’t been talented enough to excel at anything to someone who did things because he enjoyed them.He said: “I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could ‘win’ at them.”
Many of us have that mentality, and it prevents us from living up to our full potential.
Consider this my permission to change your thinking and explore available options for new and exciting challenges.
As Henry Ford said, “Every experience is worth having.” (3)
As an example, here’s one of my recent watercolour paintings, created for my sweetheart’s birthday… Back when I first picked up a paint brush, for a free live-but-virtual watercolour demonstration on January 27, 2021, I couldn’t even draw a stick figure. Now I’m happily painting birds, flowers, forests, lakes, and other nature scenes and landscapes – often en plein-air (outdoors). Just like the Impressionists, I often paint outside – in nice weather.
Contemporary abstract art is much more popular in my area, but I don’t care. I’m painting what I love, and that’s nature! When I decided to try painting last year just for fun, to give myself permission to be absolutely horrid at it, I found myself falling in love with watercolours.
My CRPS symptoms and neuropathic chronic pain still ‘suck’, don’t get me wrong! My cognitive issues still frustrate me to no end, and I continue to grieve for my stolen-by-CRPS career in bioethics. But when I’m painting, that all fades into the background. I get completely caught up in creating something out of pigments, water, and cotton paper.
What could YOU do, if you gave YOURSELF permission to try something new – and to really ‘suck’ at it, while you learned? Maybe this summer it’s time to find out…
As always, thanks for stopping by the blog. Stay safe, keep well, and enjoy the summer months ‘-) And please feel free to reach out over on Instagram or Twitter, with any comments or suggestions. I’ve had to disable the Comments feature here on the blog because managing the comments got to be too much for my cognitive issues to handle.
References:
(1) Norman Doidge. The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science. Penguin Group (Canada), Toronto. 2007. Page 87.
(2) Harvey Mackay. There’s value in exploring your hidden talents. American City Business Journals. 30 Jun 2021. Accessed 20 Jun 2022. Online:https://www. bizjournals. com/bizjournals/how-to/human-resources/2021/06/there-s-value-in-exploring-your-hidden-talents. html