Read a friend’s blog (nehrlich.livejournal.com), and he was talking about about working on his weaknesses. Doing things he knew he was bad at, in order to get better at them. And this isn’t just talk, either – words backed by *action*.

One of the weird things is that this trip has really made me realize that I really like a LOT of things. I like enough stuff that I simply don’t have the time in the day to do them all to any reasonable degree, even if I were unemployed. I want to paint. I want to play music. I want to draw, and write, and exercise, and cook, and do all these things *well*.

Like Eric talks about “natural advantages,” I’m pretty quick at becoming decent at a lot of things. All of the above things, I’m decent at. Better than average at a good number of them. Some things I’ve invested tremendous time in, some I have not. Thing is, all that time invested, and I’m still merely “better than average.” The only thing I think I can make a reasonable argument I’m very, very good at is my current job.

But the thing is, as much as I love the content of the work I do, I want to do *more*. I want to do a number of things, but I want to do them better than I currently do. And there simply isn’t time. So at some point, I have to look at the situation, and figure out how to maximize the time I do have. In some sense, I do have to work on my strengths, because if I work on my weaknesses, I *have* to ignore stuff that I already have a foundation upon which to build.

I don’t need more hobbies. I don’t need more friends, or more space, or more stuff – more than anything else, what I need is more *time*. Or a desire to do less, better. I can’t make myself want to do things less, so it’s just a question of what do I want to focus on, and can I make myself focus on that to a degree where I can ever break out of a sense of mediocrity?

I dunno – I spent years drawing, and it never really went anywhere. I never got to a point where I’d consider myself good at it – in comparison to most people who consider themselves “artists,” I’d even say I’m not good at *all*. Yet, this is something I spent years doing, in every free minute. What it’s left me is that if I need to communicate something visually, I can do a pretty reasonable job at it.

With music, I used to be able to play about six instruments “fluently.” Never in a way that I really felt was inspired, but I could bend them to my will – I could just never find a will that made the music more than just notes. Still, what that’s left me with is that I can pick up a violin, which I haven’t played in probably 18 years, and still get a reasonable tone, and play somewhat in tune, after a few minutes of practice. But to what end?

I don’t know. The skills I have are *perfect* for my job, mind you – as a game designer, having immediate access to a wide variety of skills, and knowing *how* to find out more about a given topic is a genuine strength – one that I think gives me an edge that is difficult to match. That’s not to say I’m a super-genius, or that my work is superior to some of my coworkers. What it means, though, is that I have a set of skills that’s taken my entire life to develop, and that it’s a *rare* set of skills to be as versed in as I am. Which is good. But I dunno – I don’t really know what to do with it, outside my job. I want to do a lot of things, but simply don’t have the time to do it.

and yeah, I know this sounds like I’m an egomanical wanker, but there you go. 😀