As we ramp our publishing efforts back up I find myself tackling new tasks. This old dog is learning some new tricks, and it’s honestly kind of fun.
I'm an old dog - a little gray around the edges - but I can still learn new tricks!
I talked about this a few months ago, but I ran into another example just this week and it was brought home to me that we need to be open to new ideas and new experiences.
An old friend is considering dipping their toes into the indie publishing scene. In order to do so, they need to make some changes in the way they do things. They need to learn some new tricks. Their response?
It’s too expensive.
It doesn’t make sense to learn this piece of software for a single project.
The return on investment for this project doesn’t work for me.
I need the help of a professional and I can’t find anyone I want to work with.
The list goes on, a lot of it boiling down to “I don’t want to spend the money.”
This might be carrying penny-pinching a bit too far!
Now, I know this person and have a pretty good idea of their financial position. The financial outlay is more than pocket change, but it is not so high as to be a serious impediment. It feels like the financial arguments are a cover for something deeper - something we all can relate to.
Fear.
There is financial fear, to be sure. Fear of making a bad investment, of spending money on tools we won’t continue to use. That the shiny new tool will become what Alton Brown refers to as a “unitasker,” useful for only one thing.
But there are other fears here. There is the fear that we will make the wrong choice, choose the wrong tool or the wrong collaborator, and waste time, money, and energy on a process that will never meet our needs. This is especially true when we are in unfamiliar territory. It’s pretty easy to tell if we like the color or feel of a particular material (be it wood, fabric, yarn, food, or whatever), but not so easy with a less straightforward factor, like the interface of a piece of software, or the performance of a microphone - things that often can’t be determined until we have worked with it for a while.
Case in point: We replaced our thermostat just before we left for California. Thought it was working correctly when we left, but came home to a cold house. It took a couple days and a different set of instructions to discover that what looked like a yellow wire was actually a white wire with discolored insulation, and that that particular wire controlled the heating trigger. Changed wires and suddenly we have heat - but in the process we discovered that we really are not happy with this thermostat, and there are some functions that don’t work the way we want them to. We will be exchanging it for the next model up. Thanks to the retailer’s guarantee of satisfaction we won’t have to simply toss the unsatisfactory model, but we were prepared to take that loss.
As we age and put more years between us and our school years, there is another fear that we must face: the fear that we won’t be able to use that new tool effectively, or that we can’t learn to use it at all.
I understand that one; I am often hesitant to buy something if I’m not sure I can learn to use it correctly, even though I know I am completely capable of learning anything I set my mind to. Doesn’t mean I won’t struggle with it - I might or might not - but there is still that little voice that says it could become an expensive paperweight.
If we haven’t been in a classroom for a while, or continued acquiring skills in other ways, it can be daunting to face a steep learning curve. Especially without a teacher or trainer or mentor to walk us through the necessary steps to learn a new process.
This weevil is from outside some kind of school. Not sure how much any of us would actually learn from them!
We need to remind ourselves that as creatives we are lifelong learners. We may tell ourselves that we’re just dabbling in something to fill our days. But we cannot completely dismiss the urge to improve our work, to learn a better way of doing things, to acquire skills that complement our endeavors.
Like learning how to publish the work we have written, or how to frame a picture we painted, or how to preserve the bounty from our garden.
We live in an age where the learning for these things, and many more, are at our fingertips. A simple search on the internet will turn up hundreds, or thousands, of articles, pictures, videos, lectures, demonstrations, and recommendations around any subject we want. There are websites that specialize in online courses in almost anything you can imagine - many of them are free, or have a small subscription cost. Schools across the country offer distance learning for everything in their catalogs, including many top tier institutions. For instance, it is possible to take a course in copyright law from Harvard Law. For free! That’s just one example I know about.
Only you can rightly determine what level of financial commitment is appropriate to your circumstances. Our purchase of a new computer for some specific publishing tasks was one example: the cost was not trivial, but the purchase was the best option for getting some of the functions we needed. Your mileage, as they say, may vary. But don’t make money an excuse.
If you want something, if it will bring you some measure of satisfaction, or enjoyment, or a sense of accomplishment, don’t be afraid to learn about it. Don’t create artificial barriers for yourself. Don’t deny yourself that joy (in whatever form) because of fear.
You may be an old dog, but you can always learn a new trick or two.