Something old, something new...

[ali_in_london]

Imagine that, due to some hitherto unknown great uncle or a really unusual bonus scheme at work, you had the means and the time to learn something new. You could chose anything, and you would be given time off and appropriate resources to learn it

Comments

[ewtikins]

This is actually fairly difficult. Many of the things that are in the "potentially useful skills" category are things I've dabbled in before. I'm a fairly prolific dabbler. Many of the things I think I'd enjoy are also things I've dabbled in; I'm very lucky to have had a quite broad education, all things considered. All the sciences are out because I got to play with those in highschool. Ditto maths. Ditto programming (okay, that was elementary school, but still). Ditto writing, and several languages.

Choosing a language I haven't studied before seems like a bit of a cop-out. Mandarin and Arabic would both be useful and Arabic is very beautiful. It would perhaps be more efficient or relevant for me to re-visit languages I've already had some exposure to, though; I never did quite get my head around Hebrew. If push came to shove I'd rather learn Latin than Arabic, but I've sung enough of it that it wouldn't count in this case.

Choosing an instrument I haven't touched before is rather difficult. And again it seems like cheating! I have never actually played a tuba but it's sufficiently similar to the horn that I wouldn't be starting from scratch. I'd love the 'cello but have spent enough time trying it that it's excluded, too. Ditto the harp, and we won't go into the problems with transporting the double bass.

Choosing a sport I've not participated in before is similarly hard: most of the ones I've not tried on at least some casual basis are ones that I'm pretty sure I would not enjoy, and I'm limited by what my joints will allow.

I'd quite like to learn some form of dance that is low-impact but still rhythmic, or maybe a form of meditative dance (Sufi twirling comes to mind but is probably too high-impact). Perhaps Tai Chi--but does my training in ki-Aikido and my sometime dalliance in other meditative techniques disqualify me?

I would like to learn to speak truth with gentleness, ease and strength, but that's a lifelong thing and I think that I do study it already, albeit imperfectly.

[khalinche]

I would like to learn to speak truth with gentleness, ease and strength, but that's a lifelong thing and I think that I do study it already, albeit imperfectly.

You do this better than almost anyone I know.

[ewtikins]

Thank you.