Help protect children from gaming harms.

Take our survey

Please or to access all these features

Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Are there some things that you cannot learn?

101 replies

Frequency · Yesterday 21:35

I don't mean things like how to be a morning person, or to change your life, or think like a rich person, or any other such bollocks. I mean skills that should be learnable, things that have a right way and a wrong way, like, for example, Blender.

I'm WFH now, so I have more spare time in the evening. I decided it would be fun to learn how to make animations - nothing serious, just funny little animated people doing silly things.

After two hours of trying to turn blobs into something that vaguely resembled a human, I realised you can download free people-shaped blobs. Three hours into trying to get my people-shaped blob to move like a person, I realised you can download special control rigs. Another hour later, my people-shaped blob was no longer people-shaped. Poor Blob was a distorted smudge across the screen.

It then occurred to me that Blender was not going to be one of the things I could learn while doing and by reading online tutorials, and I should probably start from the basics.

I've spent two and a half hours tonight trying to flatten a cube. In spite of spending two and a half hours on this, I am only 20 minutes into the course because I have to keep going back. The lady from the video course is making me feel stabby, and it is no longer fun; it is the opposite of fun, but I will not be beaten by a software that a primary-aged child could master.

Is it me? Is it Blender? Are there just some things that some people will never be able to master no matter how determined they are?

OP posts:
mathanxiety · Today 03:00

MyNewestUsername · Yesterday 21:54

I can’t read music. At school I felt like the only one who couldn’t. I’ve tried as an adult and I can’t do it

Me too. And I'm in a choir, faking it week after week. The notes on the page only make sense to me after I've heard the melody played, but I rely on my ear.

AndSomeForFancyDress · Today 05:26

Goonie1 · Yesterday 22:10

I’m learning Greek and think the alphabet makes sense in terms of how you then pronounce the words! The first sound of the letters “name” is how you pronounce it in the word….in the main!

Yes but the letters themselves are something I can't get my head around. "G" is an upside down L and pronounced like a Y. P looks like an N, R like a P. I spend winters in Cyprus, can just manage to recognise place names by spring, and have to learn them all over again when I return in autumn.

kc3708 · Today 05:29

Crochet
Rules to card games
The offside rule
Times tables

MrsPapillon · Today 05:35

How to braid hair. I know how to do it in theory, but my hands just can’t do it. I am in awe of how others can to it so neatly and seemingly effortlessly while I feel like I’ve got the fine motor skills of a bull elephant.

onesinglepringle · Today 05:37

I think most people can learn most things if they try hard enough. To a degree. Obviously, most people can't excel in everything.

People who say they can't do things have usually given up too soon. Some things are just hard - and harder for some than others.

Some people also have mental blocks around certain things, e.g. Maths, which they would need to work to overcome. A lot of people I've met say they just "can't do Maths" which isn't really true, they've just had bad experiences and have a mental barrier against applying themselves to it.

You can learn Blender.

Maybe the course you are following isn't right for you and you need to try a different way of learning, but you are capable of learning it. A lot of free online video courses aren't up to much tbh.

Goonie1 · Today 05:49

AndSomeForFancyDress · Today 05:26

Yes but the letters themselves are something I can't get my head around. "G" is an upside down L and pronounced like a Y. P looks like an N, R like a P. I spend winters in Cyprus, can just manage to recognise place names by spring, and have to learn them all over again when I return in autumn.

Ah ok, see what you mean. I think the only way to make that easier is suspend your thoughts on the English language completely 😂 how amazing to spend winters in Cyprus 💕 I’d love that ☺️

bittertwisted · Today 06:00

Pool/ snooker. Have been bullied in to a round with everyone saying you can’t be that bad. ….. oh you really are. I just can’t control the stick, or push hard enough to make a ball move. I don’t know why, I’m good at sport, I’m strong, I’m coordinated. Never going to master it

haveyouopenedyourbowelstoday · Today 06:17

Playing chess.
Using a sewing machine.
Paint and decorate.
I’ve tried several times!

Gengha · Today 06:34

LejlaKapovic · Yesterday 23:34

To love exercising. I just can't. I'm one of those people who get seriously depressed before, during and after exercise. I don't feel good after, I don't get a dopamine hit, and I hate sweating.

To make my job and work life a priority. I really don't care about my employer, I just work to make money. I can't be bothered to share my ideas and I'm clocking out on the dot - and then won't talk or think about work until the next morning when I clock in. I wish I was more bothered in a way - or that I could learn to be more passionate about work. But it's just not important to me aside from the money.

I wish I was more like you at work. I struggle to switch off and definitely care too much even though it’s just a job to make money and the big wigs wouldn’t give a shit if I died tomorrow

Sealswimmer · Today 06:40

History - it’s not that I’m not interested, just I forget instantly what I’ve learned, eg from a museum or similar.

(But I became a crochet addict after a short lesson and hugely prefer to knitting now!)

Bluffingwithmymuffin · Today 06:51

I think most people can master new skills at any age but it definitely gets harder to learn and retain them.

I've learnt to code, sew and knit but I have become increasingly rubbish at learning new sports/anything physical mostly because I'm more hesitant and worried about getting hurt than I was when younger. I paid for skiing lessons and never progressed despite having been a proficient snowboarder in my 20s, 3 year old learners were better!

JustAboutMuddlingThrough · Today 09:17

Knitting. I can just about manage a row before dropping the stitches, and crocheting, aside just making an extremely wonky looking square I can’t do anything else. I’ve tried and tried countless times. Watched many a YouTube video. Tried different sized crochet hooks, and different thicknesses of yarn. Maths is also one i cannot get my head around. Times table not a problem but percentages, fractions etc no chance. Weirdly though I can pick up a foreign language just like that.

the80sweregreat · Today 09:30

Crochet. My lovely dil is a demon with the one hook. I just watch in fascination. I feel that some people are at one with wool. I’m not.

HelpMeGetThrough · Today 09:35

I subscribe to the Homer Simpson philosophy, “If something is too difficult to do, it isn’t worth doing”.

So for me, if it looks difficult, I save myself the stress, have an easy life and don’t bother.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · Today 09:36

The ability to draw something, out of your head.
At school I could make a just about OK copy of a simple still life right in front of me, but anything else…. I really used to envy girls who were always drawing e.g. ponies in their rough books.
The art teacher’s comment on my report was usually one word: ‘Weak’.

OTOH people used to ask me how I could just pick out a tune on the piano….
Well, I just could.

DilemmaDelilah · Today 10:06

I think I could learn almost anything cerebral, with varying success rates depending on my level of interest (if I'm not interested I'm very bad at learning), but it's a different story with physical things. There is no way I could learn to ride a bike, and although I did teach myself to swim - after a fashion - I can only do a very uptight breast stroke as I just CANNOT put my head, or any part of my head (ears, eyes, nose) under water. However I can knit and crochet, fairly badly.

the80sweregreat · Today 10:10

My pitmans shorthand teacher was amazed at my ability to not understand any of it. That was something invented by a person who didn’t like people that much!
I can touch type though.

OooPourUsACupLove · Today 10:15

Jamming. I can play a few instruments and read music. Not sight reading, I have the practice a piece a lot to be able to play it well, but I can play ok.

But if it goes to jamming I just freeze up. Even a simple 12 bar blues, anything other than walking up and down the notes of the chords just turns into randomly hitting the keys.

DH can pick up almost sny instrument and improvise, and jam with people he's only just met. It's like a super power.

hellobellow359 · Today 10:22

driving on the opposite side of the road abroad with the gearstick and drivers seat on the opposite side to what I’m used to. Felt sick dread when approaching every junction because my muscle memory brain couldn’t comprehend which way to look for traffic. I’m a totally safe and competent driver at home and can parallel park like a bad ass. But not abroad. Nope.

Whiskeyandkittens · Today 10:22

Ice skating backwards. Someone once spent ages trying to teach me and every time I tried I just couldn't do it! We gave up in the end and I just stuck with going forwards!

Vitrolinsanity · Today 10:25

I cannot get hoses to attach to taps. I can’t figure out how Instagram works.

hellobellow359 · Today 10:28

And the free online IKEA kitchen designer app. WTF. It would be easier to break into the Bank of England at noon in broad daylight, than place a hob on the right wall.

StrictlyAFemaleFemale · Today 10:29

Certain vocal sounds in Danish. I'll say abc to my colleague, they look a bit blank and say did you mean abc? Yes that's exactly what I said. No, they say abc and I cannot hear a difference between the 2. I've come to accept this failing after nearly 20 years.

RaraRachael · Today 10:34

hellobellow359 · Today 10:22

driving on the opposite side of the road abroad with the gearstick and drivers seat on the opposite side to what I’m used to. Felt sick dread when approaching every junction because my muscle memory brain couldn’t comprehend which way to look for traffic. I’m a totally safe and competent driver at home and can parallel park like a bad ass. But not abroad. Nope.

I have never driven abroad but we were in Florida with XH doing all the driving. I just couldn't fathom what direction was what. We were at a junction and I thought, "OK, we turn this way" '- we'd have been going into oncoming traffic.

Not a clue yet I have a very good sense of direction in this country.

Seagulldancing · Today 10:37

Dance, I struggle with left and right, and can never remember the steps, and it all worse if I'm going backwards. I can throw my hand in the air and wiggle to the beat, but nothing beyond that!