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What can't you do but wish you that you could?

aaronvan

aaronvan

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Original poster
Dec 21, 2011
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What talents or skills do you wish you currently possessed, but for whatever reason never attempted, mastered, or otherwise have not achieved?

In my case, I'd love to know how to paint: landscapes, portraits, abstract, or whatever. I have never painted but someday I hope to learn.
 
Write composition easily

It is the most painful thing for me to do. It is a nightmare. :mad:
 
Sing
Draw
Martial arts
Auto and Motorcycle Mechanic(as a hobby)
Develop Apps

Things I'm ashamed I can't do .....
Whistle
Blow a bubble with gum
 
Draw and I'm a graphic designer. :p
Dance. When I was dancing at my wedding, good thing my three year old niece got up and joined us, that was the longest 4 minutes of my life.
 
There's a lot of things I wish I could do, but I'm unable to do.

for instance, I'm working towards my black belt exam later this spring. Chloe Bruce is an incredibly gifted martial artist, whose talents are mind blowing.

Flexibility, and extension of her kicks is something I wish I could do. How she handles the bo staff as shown in the YT is also incredible.

She has been doing martial arts all her life, she' is incredibly flexible. I'm a 50 year old guy who's only been doing this for a few years. The odds of getting that level of flexibility is about nil. I have increased my flexibility a great amount, but so far I've plateaued.
 
AustinIllini said:
I wish I was able to play guitar.
Click to expand...

Me too. I started late in life, devoted 2 years to it, but ended up not satisfied with my progress and it now sits in my closet. Maybe in 20 years I'll be able to sell it for a profit. :) A dedicated teacher might have made a difference, but at the time I was traveling a lot and did not want to mess with setting time aside and scheduling issues.
 
Apple fanboy said:
Draw
Paint
Click to expand...

These are things you could do now, you just have to invest the time into it.

Over the last year or so, I've been teaching myself to draw on and off. It started out slowly at first. I'd do something halfway decent, get put off because I wouldn't be able to replicate it, then drop it for a few months.

A couple weeks ago, I made a hard push to really get down to it. I started out not with the intentions of making a masterpiece in a couple of weeks, but to slog through the bare basics of training my hand and eye. Honestly, it's been kinda boring, but it's directly addressing what I think is my biggest problem: that I could never draw a line the way I wanted to.

So I'm slogging through a number of tutorials, a couple of books, and suggestions I've picked up. Basically it comes down to endlessly making circles, ellipses, lines, and random shapes to get my hand and arm used to moving. Drawing stuff around me with squiggly lines to get me to concentrate more on the effect of the line, rather than focusing on making the line perfect, and occasionally drawing a picture of a tutorial example to teach myself scale and perspective.

And the best part about it? If anyone were to look through all my sketches, they'd think I'd gone batcrap crazy!
 
Renzatic said:
These are things you could do now, you just have to invest the time into it.

Over the last year or so, I've been teaching myself to draw on and off. It started out slowly at first. I'd do something halfway decent, get put off because I wouldn't be able to replicate it, then drop it for a few months.

A couple weeks ago, I made a hard push to really get down to it. I started out not with the intentions of making a masterpiece in a couple of weeks, but to slog through the bare basics of training my hand and eye. Honestly, it's been kinda boring, but it's directly addressing what I think is my biggest problem: that I could never draw a line the way I wanted to.

So I'm slogging through a number of tutorials, a couple of books, and suggestions I've picked up. Basically it comes down to endlessly making circles, ellipses, lines, and random shapes to get my hand and arm used to moving. Drawing stuff around me with squiggly lines to get me to concentrate more on the effect of the line, rather than focusing on making the line perfect, and occasionally drawing a picture of a tutorial example to teach myself scale and perspective.

And the best part about it? If anyone were to look through all my sketches, they'd think I'd gone batcrap crazy!
Click to expand...
I think you overestimate my ability and amount of time I'd put in!
 
I'd love to be able to speak all the languages on the earth.

----------
Tomorrow said:
I wish I could vomit at will. I'd be able to get out of meetings and I'd never have to go to a wedding again.
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I can actually do that. Doesn't always help get you out of things and can actually get you into a bigger mess.
 
Speak multiple languages. I spent a lot of time on business in Luxembourg at one time and almost everyone I met spoke four languages.
 
Septembersrain said:
I can actually do that. Doesn't always help get you out of things and can actually get you into a bigger mess.
Click to expand...

Like any truly great skill, it should only be used in moderation. Otherwise, people will think you're showing off. :p

Apple fanboy said:
I think you overestimate my ability and amount of time I'd put in!
Click to expand...

Nah. Your ability is only limited by the amount of time you put into it. And your time? It isn't something you have to dedicate 8 hours to a day. Just doodle whenever you can.

I try to squeeze in at least an hour a night, which isn't all that much. If I have more time, I'll spend more with it. The less time you spend with it, obviously the longer it'll take for you to get decent. But if you stick with it, you will eventually get decent.
 
I wish I was able to take awesome pictures. I just don't have the vision to do it. It's a shame as I'd love to do it as a career.
 
Skate, I wish I could skate. Now that I'm almost as old as Tony Hawk I'd look like a doof on board but those long boards look like fun.
 
I wish I could lie. Actually, I wish I could make credible lies. Instead, I add all kinds of embellishments, and sometimes it gets self-contradictory, and then the other person is all eye-rolling, and looking at the clock on the wall, and I'm just trying to make an excuse for why I was back late from lunch, because it really wasn't my fault, there was a long line at the burrito counter, and then their cash register stopped working for the person three slots ahead of me in the line, but I couldn't just give them cash and leave, oh no, they had to get their cash register working, even though I said I was in a hurry and keep the change, but no, please wait sir for us to fix the cash register, and that took at least five minutes but it felt like hours, and the whole line of people was really getting angry, and a bunch of people farther back in the line just walked out but I already had my burrito, they just wouldn't let me pay.

And I wish I could write shorter posts.
 
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