Sunday, December 19, 2010

Things I Cannot Do

     I can't ice skate.  Or roller skate.  Or any kind of skate really.  Nor can I downhill ski or snowboard.  I can also not tie knots, other than the overhead kind or the kind that you tie by mistake and then have to spend like a half-hour getting out, that is why I flunked out of Boy Scouts.  Until recently I could not make good pancakes, although I made some pretty delicious if a little dense ones this morning.  And they were all round.   I also cannot play piano or guitar.  Anyway, this is just a small sampling of things that I cannot do that I wish I could.  When you are faced with things that you cannot do that you wish you could do there are really only two options: learn to do those things or just accept that you can't do them and that you are still an okay person.  Guess which path I chose.
     I suppose that in reality there are an infinite number of paths that lie somewhere along that spectrum between learning everything and accepting everything, and most of us choose an intermediate path.  Like for instance we would learn to skate and to make pancakes and play the piano but we would leave the rest of the things to the people who were good at them.  And I suppose that you are going to tell me that is the path that I chose to take because I have become proficient at making pancakes - because that's the kind of dick that you are, Company - and I guess that you would be right.  But I didn't choose to become good at pancakes, it just sort of happened as I made more and more pancakes.  Regardless of how you want to look at the whole thing, I am still much, much closer to the who acceptance thing than anything.
     I am okay even though I can't skate.  You are okay even though you kill every plant you touch.  And that other guy is okay even though he can't put together 3-D puzzles.  That is what makes the world so great, we are all good at some things and we are all bad at other things.  No big deal.  I will be happy to cook you a delicious lasagna if you are willing to help me tie knots when I need to.  It is the basis of a barter economy, and look at how well that worked for all of those years.  So keep on keeping on, and so will I, and we are all going to be okay.

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