I have tried to maintain a goal for this year. It is to finish things. Seeing efforts through to the end. We're nearly halfway through the year (goodness), and I figured I'd take the time to put some thoughts out on my goal.
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What is there to finish?
I have a number of projects and things I like to do, not all of which are quantifiable as separate things to be made progress on and finished. Exercise, for one, is an active maintenance thing, which cannot ever be "finished". Learning a new skill, or a new aspect of an existing skill, that can also never be finished. But still, I have a number of actually quantifiable things to count:
That list is ordered in roughly the order of how much stuff I have finished in each category.
Drawings are easy. I can quantify things as "one drawing", and bringing drawings to satisfactory (or at least tolerable) endpoints is something I've kind of managed to get a hang of. I never really was one to pick up a half-finished drawing, so much as I just decide them to be done whenever I lose interest (or reach an end result I am pleased by). On tens of pages in a whole bunch of notebooks, I have various drawings as proof of having made some. And that is good. Going to Poland on holiday, and finding an art supply shop stacked with my favourite brand of colour pencils in numerous colours I hadn't encountered before, did motivate me a lot to keep going, to justify buying more pencils to my already rather extensive selection of them at home.
Reading books is one goal I've tangibly made progress on. I have on and off times, reading or not reading, but I've been able to get myself to pick the books up more frequently now. I've finished two books, and four comic books thus far, which is on good pace to outdo last year, when I think I finished two books all year. I was one of those children who could go through a book at remarkable speed back in the day, and I certainly do find that person somewhere within me on occasion still today. Adult life and distractions come in the way, but sometimes I do catch that bug of sitting through something all in one go. I've sat down to read books too long into the evening this year, for certain. I got my hands on House of Leaves on my holiday to Sweden this winter, and within a couple weeks, I had got myself through the entire thing. I borrowed Good Omens from a friend some time ago, and I now very recently managed to finish that up too. And the comic books are The Sandman ones. Another friend borrowed me the whole 14 book collection she had, and I've now started on number 5. I'm glad to have found the patience to sit down with all of these works - I've known I would like all of them, but making myself sit down to start them out took some time. I'm rather prone to whiling away hours at the computer for nothing, and while that occasionally is a good pastime too, sometimes we need a bit of a mindless break from things, I could rather use with less of them. But I am making progress! Maybe I'll finish the comic books this year? My friend let me know she is in no hurry to need them back, so I can take my time, but I don't want to take all time in the world still. My other friend, who lent me Good Omens, has borrowed House of Leaves from me after I finished it, and is wrestling with the same thing about having to get started on it.
In the general vibe of *experiencing stories*, I've also actually managed to listen out a fiction podcast to the very end too! I had left The Magnus Archives somewhere on episode 163 a couple years back, but now I managed to pick myself up and get that also to the end, all the way to episode 200. And now I'm on a second round, having made it to episode 84 to hear it all over again. I have convinced two friends of mine to listen to it as well, and they are very interested!
Learning to play songs. It's slow work, but it is work. I've written a note of 5 songs I'd like to play fluently from memory on the guitar. Playing from memory, I can play 2, but fluently, I can play none. I still take breaks to figure out the next parts. But, I have a very challenging one on the list, and I've been slowly, *slowly* hacking away at that. It is the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Or rather, seeing that it is a technically challenging piece on the guitar (on piano, it is rather a bit easier), I made my goal be to play the first page of the movement (out of four). 18 bars, out of the whole piece of 68. And I'm pleased to say that I am on the brink of having memorised all of the 18 bars thus far, being soon able to continue learning the piece. I have also, inevitably, improved on my accuracy of hitting some of the more challenging notes, getting my grips in time, that sort of thing. That part of the progress is still slow, painfully so, but it will come, one day.
Writing on my own stories... Now that's a whole different beast. And by that, I mean that my story ideas, I've envisioned them to end up as rather longer works. And two evenings of writing aren't going to bring me very far. But, they are two evenings, and two is better than zero. Nothing finished, but something started.
And finally, writing my own songs, that is a whole thing I would really *want* to do, but never do. I have a small collection of scraps here and there - a couple chords, a stanza of lyrics, a twinkle of melody, an aesthetic to go for, all strewn around my metaphorical studio. But none of those have to do anything with any of the others. And the scraps aren't numerous enough for strange and compelling synergies to emerge from the mass. This is somewhat also tied up to my guitar practice being slow, but it is tied up to many other things as well. Maybe I should amass scraps to have something to stitch together later. Something nearing its end? The year, at this rate.
Another of my overall goals, besides "finishing things", has been to interact with the arts daily. Be that working on my own projects, or experiencing those of others, I've wanted to be able to tick off that daily, to have interacted with something at least. Making my own things is good, but what I make is informed by the stories I read, the music I hear, and the art I see. So taking in those arts is also of value. I've lately had one friend offer me advice on what artists to listen to in a genre I have recently started exploring. It's given me ample opportunity to take in new ideas of how things work and what people might like. Listening to new music previously unfamiliar to me has not been on a consciously made list of mine anywhere, but it deserves a mention too. I have found many a thing I really like in the past few weeks. And it's opened up an avenue to talk about music with my friends in a different way, since I get to learn their opinions on my newly discovered genre corner.
One art a day, experienced or made yourself. That is very easy, in the end.
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"Finishing things". I have finished some things, indeed. What I lack are discipline, routines, and a way to avoid the ever easy excuse of being *tired*, usually from the working life that drains so much of everyone's energy. But I can still do something.
I will go practice on the guitar some more now. I can spare 20 minutes from tonight to do that, at least.