Revelations are an interesting part of life. Sometimes they appear out of nowhere; other times, we have to wait for them to show themselves, largely because life requires that you look forward a lot at the road ahead instead of wasting time looking back to see where you’ve been.
The recent revelation that I do things because they entertain me – not because they bring me fortune or fame – has been a godsend. I now have the luxury at looking back at my life and connecting a lot of dots that were seemingly unconnected or just random.
There are things in life that have been obvious passions: pirating, writing, performing, building art at out of recyclables – these have all been an integral part of my life; inseparable from who I am.
Then there are the “Sure I Cans.” These are the things I either tried or learned along the way and then moved on once I figured out how to do it.
These pursuits never rose to the level of a passion, not like writing or pirating. There is, after all, only so much time to indulge in a passion or passions, and as much as I enjoyed learning them, doing them every day or even seasonally, didn’t really entertain me long term.
So I move on and they move into the realm of “Sure I Cans.”
My first big ‘Sure I Can” involved a unicycle. My brother had moved away and left his old unicycle at the house, so it kind of became mine. It didn’t have a seat any longer, so I borrowed the one off my five speed. It was not the best idea, as an English racing bicycle seat is not the best choice to learn to ride this particular mode of transportation. I ended up having to angle the front way up in order to stay on the damned thing, which, in more ways than one, turned out to be a real ball buster.
My first trip out was as enlightening as it was entertaining. As usual, I checked a book out from the Renton library to serve as my teacher. I would read a page, hop on the unicycle, crash and burn, and then reread the page again and do it all over. I admit that I probably could have had an easier time learning the basics, but the it entertains me bug struck in the middle of a snowy winter, the road frozen to a glistening sheen.
Eventually, my skills improved and it wasn’t long before I could shoot off down the road, turn left and right, ride back and dismount somewhat gracefully. After learning how to idle in one place, I moved on, ready to be entertained by something else.
I rinsed and repeated with juggling and golf. More library books, more mastery of the basics before I moved on again, largely because I discovered that these 1) no longer entertained me, and 2) could never become my passion.
I guess skydiving can fall into that category too, but I still am not completely sure. The fear of falling and the fear of heights may have dampened the entertainment value here, but I was only 16 and I never really took the time to explore it after popping my ankle on the runway. I still have the $28 receipt for the third jump I never made.
Painting could fall into this category as well. One of the reasons this RobZerrvation is seeing the light of day is the painting hanging in the master bath here at the house. It’s of a sailboat at anchor in the tropics, the radiant reds and oranges of a setting sun in the distance.
I painted it in 2005. Yup, a decade ago. It was my second painting, the first a mountain-scape because mountains and trees seemed easier to paint. Yes, happy little trees in the Bob Ross style. I really liked painting, but I hated the clean up. Of course, I couldn’t pick something easy like watercolors or even acrylics. I chose oils, largely because I liked the fact that oils allowed plenty of do-overs, because the paint doesn’t dry quickly.
Once I got a painting I halfway liked, I moved on. The basics mastered, painting no longer entertained me.
I seem to have quite a few Sure I Cans in my life. I can chalk up snowmobiling and snow skiing to wanting to get laid; they never fell into the entertain me category but they are still bonafide Sure I Cans. Skateboarding is a Sure I Can as well, as is period camping, camping in general (another getting laid Sure I Can), contra-dancing and banjo playing.
Yes, I play banjo. I hate to admit it. It’s like the nerdiest thing I can think of. But it was just a gateway Sure I Can. I still can’t play bluegrass on the thing. I just wank on it in a unique strumming technique that mystified every member of the Seattle Banjo Band, no matter how many times I showed it to them.
Yes, the strumming style entertains me; the perfection of banjo, not so much. I never really wanted to get better at it. That would consume way too much time and other Sure I Cans were waiting in the wings, though for the life of me I can’t seem to recall them now. But the banjo did lead me to the tenor guitar, which is still fun to play, though I profess I don’t really want to put any more work into it to become better because it’s performing that entertains me, not the technical mastery of an instrument.
And there are times when Sure I Cans loop back around again. Though the fear of breaking a hip and a general distaste for cold weather keeps me from taking up skiing again, I do have a fresh set of untouched oil paints in the upstairs closet, right next to the steampunk gun I want to make out of old TV tubes, surgical tubing and a cocktail shaker.
As I said, there’s always a Sure I Can waiting in the wings. Which one entertains me, well that remains to be seen.
In the Emerald City, Sure I Can finish this RobZerrvation with a proper signoff,
– Robb