The Creative Arts... Or Lack Thereof

It's pretty apparent by now that I'm not destined to be a creative individual.

I do have a love for the creative arts as a whole, but in all of them that I've tried the quality of my product is about that of a counterfeit Rolex.  It seems like I've dabbled in most things but have not yet found anything I can do with any reasonable amount of proficiency.

But I'm not whining.  Okay, maybe I am.

I've spent several years in music but found it beyond my ability to excel at.  It may have something to do with the fact that music relies lot on math, which was my worst subject in school.  I spent all of my latter school years playing the alto saxophone, and was only barely good enough to stay in the class.  I think what I disliked enough about music enough to have never succeeded at it was the structure.  Music takes practice and dedication, neither of which I possess(ed).  In my more recent history I decided I was going to learn how to play guitar.  I jumped into it in earnest, but finally relented and let it wane.  I never seemed to be able to remember the chord fingerings, and if I could, could never go from one to another smoothly enough to make it work.  Now it sits in its case collecting dust.

Maybe I would have been good at singing, but I'll never know now.  I know they say, "It's never too late" but I have no interest to try.  Ditto on dancing.  (I mean really--Can you even imagine?)

I've never tried acting.  Who knows?  I doubt if I would have ever been any good--At least on stage--Because I have a crappy memory and would never remember my lines.

Art itself is a huge category and I have always had an appreciation for all forms of it, but I have no imagination whatsoever for anything "art" myself.  If someone gave me all the tools to create something on paper--Be it pencil, pen, paint, or whatever--I would sit and stare blankly before idly doodling with scrawls of nothingness.  It was probably someone with my talent that did the art on cave walls back in the day.  I do love to ooh and ah over other people's art though.  I love museums and galleries.  It never ceases to amaze me how people can pull something out of their heads and transfer it into a medium that other people can enjoy.  Sarah has that sort of talent.  I don't.

I've always enjoyed stories, writing, and even poetry.  I've written a lot of short stories but none of them amounted to anything worthy of mention.  From a writing standpoint, I guess I should just be content with occasionally penning a stupid or banal blog post. When I was in school English was always my best subject.  I can't really explain why.  It must have been that I just understood the mechanics of it though even that is escaping me now.  I find myself forgetting rules of punctuation and over-using forms of it--Like double-dashes for example.  I hope I don't ever forget the different forms of YOUR and YOU'RE. I think Suz would divorce me if I did. She can only take so much...

My ability to write poetry is right up there (or should I say down there) with my ability to write.  Sure, I can write witty rhymes, but how hard is that?  The ability to write real poetry is not within my grasp.  To me, the definition of poetry is a certain level of beauty.  It doesn't have to rhyme but it needs to convey a feeling.  I try but fail... So I sit and wail.

Now it's photography's turn.

I really have fun taking pictures, but I can't shoot a good picture on purpose.  I've had a few successes but they've all happened by accident.  Because I have little imagination I usually don't know what I like until I see it and I'm able to select it from alongside others ("This one looks less crappy than that one... I'll use it.").  I have a lot of trouble with composition.  I can usually get the other parts of the photography formula correct but I have a lot of trouble "seeing" a shot before I take it.  Ask anybody that has had me taking pictures of them.  "What do you want me to do?  Where should I be?" they might ask.  "I dunno..." I say as I look around blankly.  I end up just taking pictures every which way, hoping one of them is less than crappy and therefore usable.  I call myself a "mechanical" photographer.  I concentrate on the nuts & bolts of taking pictures.  I want the settings to be perfect every time.  Color, clarity, light--I want it all just right.  But what is just right?  Some of the best photography I've ever seen has obvious mechanical flaws in it like focus or color, but it still strikingly beautiful.  Even when I have pictures in front of me on the computer I can't seem to "see" that if I crop it a certain way it would be so much better.

I guess in all of this whining I've discovered that I am really good at one thing:  Mediocrity!

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