Things I Can’t Do

There are millions of things I can’t do. I can’t tightrope, juggle or skateboard. I tried skateboarding once. Hospital. I can’t play darts, snowboard or ski. I tried skiing once. Hospital. I could, and no doubt you also could, fill this page with things we cannot do.

Some things I can’t do, but believe I could do, if I had the time and patience, like play a musical instrument. I reckon I’m quite musical. I’ve always loved music, and dancing, I can whistle a tune, I can even sing a bit, but I’ve never had the patience and stick-to-it-ness to play an instrument.

And I’m not that bothered.

However, there’s one thing I wish I could do, but I can’t, and that’s draw. I can’t draw to save my life. I’m jealous of people who can knock up a funny face in a few seconds with a few lines. I long to be able to sit and draw, well, anything. When I draw something, it looks like a spastic did it on an etch-a-sketch whilst riding a bus over an assault course.

I think I’m quite a creative chap. I write, I’ve done a fair bit of design work, I have a degree in the arts, I’ve made ‘art’, not the traditional kind but art nonetheless. I’ve dabbled a wee bit in music, and drama too, so I do have a creative bent, but dammit I wish I could draw.

Now, no advice please, no suggesting I go to drawing class, or practice this-or-that, because I fucking know already. It’s not that I couldn’t improve, I know I could, but I’d only go from terrible to mediocre – in short, I still wouldn’t be able to draw. 

I believe that drawing is an inherited ability, like being funny, or musical, or a good at sports. Some people, no matter how much they practice, will always look like an ironing board on a dancefloor. Comedy is the same. I’ve tried a little comedy acting, and I worked with some very funny people (one of whom passed away this week – RIP DW), and their comic timing was, in my opinion, in-built. A gift. A talent. Comic acting relies on that innate timing that funny people have. We are all funny sometimes, but genuinely funny people are funnier more often. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg said

“Everyone is a genius at least once a year.  The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.”

In my opinion comedy is the same – everyone is funny once a year, but… Incidentally, Lichtenberg was a German scientist.

So that’s it. I can’t draw, and I wish I could. I can however, spell. It’s my own personal theory, and I have no evidence other than personal experience to back this up, that you can either draw or spell. Are you good at spelling? Can you draw? Are you good at drawing? Can you spell? Bet you can’t do both well.

Now, go and check my entire oeuvre for errors, you pedant!