2024-07-23
I'm actually transcribing this on 2024-09-04 - I had originally intended to just take photos of this, but I'm just going to transcribe it instead.
I've been trying to pick guitar back up for the past couple months. I used to be able to play, not well mind you, but did have grade one and could play a few songs. It's probably been seven years since then, and I'm now a total beginner again. I try practise every day if I can but rarely manage that level of consistency, and so it's more like a few times a week. At present all I'm trying to learn is *Here Comes the Sun*, which is proving a right challenge.
I don't overly enjoy the practice. Whilst I do it, I feel a little bored, and generally inept. It is surprising how hard even things that seem easy are to do. My progress is slow: two months or so in, I know the intro but struggle to play it without pauses, and cannot do the chorus, verse, or transitions yet. It's weird that it is so difficult to do. Really, to even get to an okay state I would not be surprised if it takes a year or more. I really commend people who can play well, and naturally...
I've been looking at veronique.ink's blog, and notice her fantastic ability to draw. She uses fountain pens, as do I, but I only write with them, and never overly well. My handwriting (perhaps I ought to take a photo when I transfer this onto the website...) is small, rather tidy, but uninteresting. I could not draw to save my life. Of course, this too is inexperience: I never draw. Those who can draw doodle in the margins, or practise in their spare time... I do not. Likewise, my writing is nothing especial, given that I simply allow my thoughts to stream, and do not make any attempt to play with words. I feel as though, even if I were to try, since it does not come to me naturally, the result would be of no good, and so in a way end up continuing as I am. In a way, that is what I want to break with my guitar practise: yes, it is forced, of course; the hope is that with time it will become more natural. I'm not sure how long that will take. Really, focussing on the goal is wrong way here: if I focus on the training in the moment, the goal will by grades almost complete itself.
So what ought I do in terms of drawing? I suppose to relax the constraint that these notebooks are *for writing* could help. As a road that is completely given to cars brings ruin to the cityscape, so this notebook too cannot be given to words. I ought allow myself the freedom to write here many words, here few words; there a picture, there none; it is for all who partake of the form of the written. I did once draw a tree in the notepad. The pen and paper give me freedom; I ought not be constrained by lines.
Of course, I can't draw. I don't know what to draw. If I did, I wouldn't have the ability to anyways. Yet, why should that stop me? I might want to draw. It'll turn out terrible, yet still no harm done by it.
Even this wv... maybe I can just photograph the pages. Why *must* I put it in a textual form? (accessibility, but it was meant to be rhetorical!)
The website is in quite a poor state at the moment. It doesn't look good, doesn't have much on it, etc. wv is basically all I've been doing for it, and mostly I've been writing them yet not uploading them. This I guess is because I have in progress a plan for a new site, where I can have pages automatically generated, instead of fiddling about with each HTML file manually. It would make, e.g. wv a whole world easier. As such, I'm almost not bothering with the site until this is done, however long it may take. For fairly simple ideas, it's taking me a long time, probably as I'm using C++.
But another thing is: I write so much in my notepads, yet only ever publish (infrequently) wvs. Only if I get the time for a wv do I have anything to publish. I'd like to publish more. Yet, is it a good goal? Or is it sort of sinful, like trying to make as much money as possible?
I'm not really sure. I'm also getting tired as I write...
Keep it going with guitar. Try to loosen the death grip of words in these notepads, and allow other forms, like sketches, to come out. Maybe it will work, probably it won't.
Ok, my eyes are forcing themselves shut. Call it here... Have a good one.