I frequently complain about TECH: tech driving me crazy, not working, updating itself (and outdating me)… yes, it’s been a bit of a theme, and I’m NOT proud of all my bitchin’!
However, I am happy to report that “on my summer holiday” (remember those back-to-school writing assignments?) I “rewrote the narrative”. Hand me a huge gold star, please?
Let’s face it, it was either push through somehow or give up a whole lot of my creative plans. To let tech beat me would be an embarrassing throwing-in of the towel…and then what? Drift further and further away from the pleasant-if-slippery shores of techie competence in a tiny dinghy, sure to spring a leak, sure to be overturned in the next middling wave…
Drastic problems (drastic resistance on my part) call for drastic measures. Or maybe just simple ones like DEVOTING SOME TIME to learning the %&/(#% software! How much time, you ask? To quote my guru: “as much as it takes…nanoseconds, millennia.” (For a witty-but-true perspective on time, go here.).
Normally it’s hard to find an expanse of time that encourages the willingness to dive in, knowing a priori that the pool is far deeper than it looks. I am reminded of a dear adult student in New York City, who, after a year or so of lessons told me “If I’d known how hard this is—learning to play flute—I wouldn’t have started…but now that I’m started, I'm going to do it!” And he absolutely did.
But being on holiday for an entire month (ahhhh!!), I had all the time and no excuses. And what I found out was, if you allow the “thing” — in my case, learning the basics of Final Cut Pro video software— whatever time it takes, without being impatient or resentful, well, things move along quite a bit better! It was a classic case of the resistance to spending a pile of time causing the thing to take even more time, adding frustration and annoyance. Stop pushing and half the friction disappears.
Good old F. M. Alexander expressed this as “stop doing the wrong thing and let the right thing do itself.” But he was smarter than me; I (apparently) need to re-learn this on a regular basis. Yup, learning to take time to learn…takes time!
In any case, I have “rewritten my narrative” about tech. Although as far as Final Cut Pro goes, I am still only up to my ankles in the kiddie pool, I must admit that it is a miraculous piece of kit! Not so long ago it might have cost $5K or $50K even $100K to get a program with such capacities. So OF COURSE you can’t learn it all quickly…or possibly ever. Just as I haven’t “learned flute” all yet, either.
And that’s ok. I have rewritten the narrative, and now I know I can learn a complex program if I just give the time it needs, rather than the time I think it “should” take. And now I know the path to a rewrite any of the other countless narratives I have in my head, too.
Which is good, because I just got the news that Finale music notation software—my previously much-complained-about techie bugaboo program—has been KILLED OFF! Whaaaat???? So I get to test myself once again soon…😊 🤓😩
PS. I also “did” the holiday things: rest up, read, take walks, and especially la dolce far niente. The famous “do nothing”. And believe me, that, too was a narrative rewritten—see photo!