what you once wanted and now have

29 May, 2024

what i once wanted and now have:

• language skills: that i can hang out with German-speakers in German and speak with our French neighbors in French and can read books in mandarin and can even speak some basic Japanese — i really wanted to be such a person and now i am ; being “restaurant fluent” in Italian and “tourist fluent” in Indonesian ; generally being able to enjoy videos and podcasts due to being able to understand a certain language, being able to communicate with people in different languages. I think a lot of people want this and think it’s cool and i am definitely one of them.
• a boat (a really chic and comfortable and beautiful boat — a good boat! And especially at this level of comfort now that we have lithium and enough solar to be at anchorage indefinitely and a semi-deck shower and a projector for movies!)
• cooking skills — i can cook some things i want to cook now and more importantly I learned how to learn to cook new things! I feel i improve all the time too as i learn to cook such that there are times when i can reverse engineer a recipe or make my own recipes

(A lot of my happiness comes from skills i think)

• the ability to grow plants to a certain degree
• piano playing (that i can play some Chopin and Debussy and Bach and Liszt that I want to play)
• music theory knowledge (basic but with this basis i can learn and expand from it should i want to!)
• some herbalism knowledge
• an international group of friends
• a forever boyfriend
• a cat
• a kindle
• a remarkable
• near endless supply of music and books and even to some degree, movies and shows
• sailing skills (being able to go from place A to place B and do all the things before, after and in-between — there is room for improvement of course but I’m happy that i have some level of skill now)
• a good relationship with my parents: not the most intimate but it’s rather friendly
• open water diving
• being a more outdoorsy, active person

(Things I’ve written in my diary:
“I want to learn German”
“i want to speak French”
“I want to be an athlete and a chef”)

The reason i have so many skills-related “what i now have that i once wanted” is because i think skills basically unlock enjoyments previously untapped by lack of skill

(Imagine like, surfing~ the joy of being able to surf!)

Some new life philosophies:

(1) want what you have, explore what is available to you:

Rather than thinking about what you don’t have all the time, look to see what is available to you right now.

For example, for me, what is available is:

• reading
• sailing
• swimming
• freediving
• continuing to learn languages
• writing
• to some extent, yoga
• to some extent, hiking/walking
• looking at fish and cats! (We are currently in Greece and Greece is full of stray cats)
• cooking, to some extent
• taking pictures
• watching movies
• guitar playing

What is not available to me:

• my cat
• access to a piano
• growing plants in a controlled environment
• elaborate cooking
• rock climbing

And rather than dwelling on what i don’t have and wish i had — which would be a waste of what i do have — i just put these items into a little “set meal” to be “ordered” at a later period. They go together very nicely in a normal domestic lifestyle, which is the easier, more default thing to have in life…so i want to enjoy the sailing life as much as possible now (i was whining about sailing a while ago but now i like it)

I think the danger of social media is that people look at other people living a different life and having fun and they become aware of things that they could have but do not have

It’s not even that those things are better but whatever situation you are in, there will be things that are possible for you and things that are not possible for you

Rather than wasting energy to wish that you could do things that are not possible for you, why not do what is available? Enjoy this phase of life and plan for the next one, if you would like to.

Like for me, when i listen to classical piano, i get this itchy unsatisfied jealous feeling like “i want to play the piano too” — but i think that means i just have to stop listening to classical piano for now…it is almost like a “guilty pleasure” in a way because it makes me feel bad as a result and i feel bad about making myself feel bad! It is a bit like Odysseus wanting to hear the sirens. He knows they’re no good for him but… but…

But i have a guitar. It’s not my favorite instrument but i also have a lot of other hobbies to keep me happy

I’m also intentionally staying away from the piano YouTubers i used to watch like Tiffany poon (i like her very much)

But I’m going all in with the things that i can have in abundance and multiplying my excitement. I follow a couple of booktubers and i really love listening to them talk about books. It’s not even so important what they read but just the fact that they really love reading…no one in my life talks about books like this and i find it satisfying to listen to someone talk about a book with tenderness and emotion and joy and appreciation, no matter the book.

(2) what you now want that you cannot immediately have will be available to you later, so don’t worry, enjoy what you have now!

(3) do easy things a lot and the hard things will become surprisingly easy

I used to not understand a word of Virginia Woolf, like my mind just glazed over everything she said and i honestly didn’t care. I’ve been reading a lot of things i wanted to read and really enjoyed myself and then got curious about Virginia Woolf again except this time when i read her, she was comprehensible to me! And ENJOYABLE even! (I may be speaking too soon because i only read a few pages of “Jacob’s room” but i really love it — and i appreciate her use of language very much)

I also got mysteriously “good” (or, “better”) at yoga by doing a bunch of yoga that was easy and accessible to me…it’s like I suddenly craved more and was curious and when i tried something that was different, harder, i really enjoyed it

I think in general, when acquiring a new skill, it’s good to do what is accessible and fun and doable and to do that a lot and the progress will come all by itself and one must not worry about such things. The important thing is to have fun. Trust that the skill will come and unlock even more fun!