Are there some things that you cannot learn?

[Frequency]

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?

@LifeBeginsToday - “It takes years to learn a skill not hours”.

Usually yes, but in general you can fairly well judge what comes to you naturally and what doesn’t.

As children we were taught a variety of sports. No amount of time spent in the swimming pools (many lessons, courses, different instructors) or holidays with swimming facilities taught me how to swim.
Ice skating oth was a breeze. I loved it from the start and was the best among girls and nearly as good as the fastest and most nimble boys in our group.

After 50 years I still can’t swim😩.
I can still do ice skating and taught well my now adult DD.

It’s not always the time spent learning.

Now I can do Greek, but both instagram and Pinterest leave me totally baffled; to me they just seem to be a confusing jumble of non related stuff.
And yes, I’m pretty tech savvy and am rarely beaten by technology of any kind.

How to catch something thrown at me or how to drive. I have bottom of the pile (like bottom 4% of population reaction times. By the time my brain has processed the onformation that someone has thrown something to me and tried to instruct my hand to move to receive it, the ball/keys/whatever is lying on the floor beside me. Same problem with working out distance of moving vehicles, when to brake, accelerate etc. I just freeze.

Also singing in tune. I'm not tone deaf. I can hear the correct notes in my head but an entirely different squeak or grunt comes out of my mouth. No control at all. It's a mystery to me how people produce the notes in their head whenever they want.

However there were things I thought I could never learn, like running, weightlifting which turned out to be easier than I thought.

Also Instagram. Utterly baffles me. I can never access the stories I want. They flicker and jump around. I try to click on a friend's post and it leaps to someone i barely know talking about some random thing. Hate it.

Pinterest! Yes! Is it because the Internet didn't exist when we were young? But I'm pretty people older than I can manage so that doesn't wash. Hmmmm...

Haha I really don’t know, but I’ve worked with computers since mainframes existed in the late 80s and I suppose I do understand HOW Pinterest works, but maybe I just don’t quite understand WHY when I can organise and save things myself in many formats without going through page after page of utter tat.

Where's the laughing emoji???

Define “basic” maths? Because absent any dyscalculia, if you are talking about arithmetic, it’s strange you struggle with it. I mean 2+2 is basic maths. Squares have 4 sides is basic maths.

Being a really talented musician or footballer. You can learn to be really good. But having that talent that stands you out from others makes you excellent.

Maths and physics. I don’t think I could pass a maths degree even for a million pounds. After a certain threshold my brain hits a brick wall.

I’m the same! I can knit quite well but put a crochet hook in my hand and I’m all fingers and thumbs! I’ve even been on two courses to learn how to crochet, last one I thought I’d got the hang of it and went to practice when I got home - was rubbish, couldn’t remember a thing, I was trying to knit with the hook 😆 I’ve given up now.

Sudoku.

DM can knit, but she swears she will never be able to crochet as she insists that you can only do one or the other 😂

Cryptic crosswords!

Tennis. I had lessons in school. Played with my friends. I was awful. Had more lessons as an adult. After six lessons the teacher told me to pick another sport.

I can't play tennis. At all. I mean I struggle to actually hit the ball never mind get it over the net. My friend is the same but she's braver than me and signed up for some adult tennis lessons. At the end of the course the teacher was congratulating the students as they were ready to progress to next level. Except for my friend, who had made zero progress and still couldn't hit the ball. The teacher said she had impressed him with her commitment despite... (long pause as he searched for least offensive wording)....finding it challenging 😂.

Step Classes. Tried one in the 90s. The teacher told me she’d never seen anyone with less coordination than me. Didn’t go back.

Oh that’s harsh @the80sweregreat!

I teach fitness classes and every so often the powers that be send a ‘mystery shopper’ into my classes to get an honest snapshot of whether I’m doing my job properly. They sent me one a couple of months ago (obviously we don’t find out we’ve been mystery shopped until a few days later), and I was genuinely astounded at how uncoordinated this guy was; believe me I have seen a lot of very uncoordinated people in my classes over the years but this was on another level. He couldn’t move in time with the music at all, he needed about 30 seconds to process each instruction, tried to ask me (non-urgent) questions mid class, didn’t know his left from his right and quite possibly his arse from his elbow either. I was amazed that the company had used someone so uncoordinated- usually they send someone who is actually quite good at exercise. Seems like it was a bit of a test! I smiled at him a lot and then afterwards thanked him for coming to the class and for doing his best. 😂

Flat pack. I can't do it. The instructions may as well be in chinese. It's like a red rag to a bull, I get really angry & feel stupid (luckily I have a very competent dh!) My adult dds are both brilliant at it, can put anything together but neither can knit or crochet while I can do both. My eldest dd says when it comes to wool she doesn't have a clue.

I can't dive into a swimming pool. When I was at school I did the most enormous belly flop in front of all my class. I almost died of embarrassment and have never attempted it since.

I just can't work out how you get from standing at the edge to going headfirst into the water.

That was 50 years ago so it's never going to happen now!

I can’t wink. I’ve tried and tried but I just cannot get one eye to close whilst the other stays open. I think at 46 I just have to accept it isn’t happening!

I cannot skate at all. I remember as a kid my sister whizzing around, but I was so clumsy/uncoordinated I just couldn’t get to glide like others were. I’ve tried again as an adult but have had to accept I can’t do it.

I am terrible at anything artistic. I will give it a go, but I have no natural talent so it looks awful.

Ride a bike.

I can both crochet and knit! but I can only count rows and figure out where I've made a mistake in crochet. It took me 8 years to learn it though! Now I can free pattern and make whatever I want!
I cannot for the life of me do any kind of choreographed dance apart from the Macarena! if it has steps I need to learn that's a nope. Tik tok dancers are insane.