Active discussions

Help protect children from gaming harms.

Take our survey

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Chat

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

Original poster

Are there some things that you cannot learn?

105 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:
TryAgaiJ · Today 10:43

Really fascinating to read this as my teenage DD who couldn’t cope at all in MS secondary school subsequently diagnosed as AuDHD has taught herself Blender plus learnt crochet, and Korean using YouTube & Netflix without subtitles and plays the piano. Maybe it’s a part of the brain needed that is accessed differently. Yet she struggles with many things that most folk find easy. She does rotate through a lot of YouTubers finding a learning style that suits her, and has herself a couple of channels on very niche interests which attract good feedback as she can communicate complex things with ease yet is seriously struggling to pass her gcse English. HOW we all learn is different and finding that way is key to learning new skills.

VimesandhisCardboardBoots · Today 11:01

Yep. I will never be able to draw, or paint, or any other visual art.

I was always spectacularly crap at art in school, and a few years ago I realised I was aphantasic and that pretty much explained why.

I can compose a piece of music. I hear it in my head, and then can play that on the piano, and then write down the notes I've played.

I cannot see the thing I want to draw in my head. If I want to draw a rabbit, then obviously I know what a rabbit looks like. If I went out and saw a rabbit, my brain would go "That's a rabbit", so the knowledge is definitely in there, but I just can't picture it in my head to then copy that mental image onto the paper. It's no better if I've got a reference picture, because I have to look away from it to look at the paper and my pencil, and so the image is instantly gone from my brain.

CrystalSingerFan · Today 11:07

Calculus. Peeps have tried to teach me three times. Might have another go in my declining years. Wish me luck.

Catdoorman · Today 11:08

Driving, I've had hundreds of lessons, I can technically drive a car, I cannot pass the test, my brain goes blank, I can't focus for that long. My friends and colleagues make fun of me often about it. 😣😭.

Original poster
Frequency · Today 12:29

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.

Edited

I appreciate your confidence in my ability to Blender. You're wrong, but I appreciate it. It's not a free course; it's on Udemy's subscription service, and it was the highest-rated course on there, so I don't think it's the course. It's definitely me.

I'm relieved to see it's not just me and others struggled with Blender. And it's interesting to see so many people cannot crochet. That's another skill I never mastered. I can knit, but crochet defeated me. That didn't bother me as much as not being able to master Blender.

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Swipe left for the next trending thread