So yeah, this quote (the title) from Shang-Chi kind of sent me spinning.
My problem (and it has been a longstanding problem… like, for my whole life), was that I did what I was told. I listened to what my parents/grandparents, teachers, bosses, and other people in positions of authority, told me, and because I was the youngster, student, or underling, I believed them, without question.
By trying to emulate my mom’s “goal-setting doesn’t work” mindset, I set myself up to become an adult who spent many years climbing ladders she didn’t want to be on.
The best time to solve this was 30 years ago. The second best time is now.
I’m going to spend the next bit of time working on my sketching/drawing/illustration skills. Ultimately, the goal is to develop mad skillz™ (as the kids say) to apply to nature journaling in the context of becoming a naturalist.
I’ve been doing design and illustration for many years now, and even have some education in both disciplines, but my drawing skills are still more stilted than I would like them to be.
A lot of nature journalers focus (rightly) on observation vs. quality of drawing — as far as the experience goes, that is appropriate and desirable. For *my* experience, I want to be a person who can reliably sketch whatever is in front of me in a way that reads well, and that’s going to require *a lot* more practice. (Please don’t ask me to draw a person, a horse, or a car… it will be a disappointing experience for all of us.)
Also, this area does not have a master naturalist course, so I’ll have to go to Oregon (via the Columbia Plateau ecoregion, directly adjacent to where I am, and where I am more likely to spend time because of the geopolitical boundaries), or Montana (via the Northern Rockies ecoregion, which I technically reside in, but because of geopolitical boundaries, I’m less likely to spend time in Idaho and Montana than working in Washington, where I live). Some things need to be ironed out there.
For now, though, I’m going to draw some cars (which I am very bad at, at the moment) and work on human faces. At the end of next month, I’ll join an artistic anatomy class and a different sketching class and see where they go.
There’s no five-year plan here, or a plan to monetize anything… there’s still much to figure out, but I figure having a goal is a start, right?
P.S. Please don’t tell my mother, because her first question will be, “But what are you going to *DO* with that?” It’s an innocent question that cuts me to the bone. (FTR, she doesn’t like it either. She didn’t tell her parents she was studying the harp, ever. It runs in the family.)
Carmen Yount 