Alright so it’s been a while since I’ve done this.
Excuses, right, I’ll just get to it then.
I.... was knitting.
Before Christmas I made a bunch of hats and scarfs
and things for friends and family and it's basically a great way to feel
productive while still being able to watch YouTube videos for three hours. So, that’s
kind of what I was up to for a couple of weeks. I did have some stuff that I
wanted to write about, but that I also did not want to write about. How to
explain that contradiction? Well, sometimes people like to write to get out
their frustrations and at the same time I didn’t really want to put a whole
bunch of complaints I have about my position into writing because it just
wouldn’t be productive. So, I’m very pointedly not going to write about sexism or speculate on how certain people’s attitude towards me might be
different were I male.
What I am going to do is tell you about my Thneed.
More like my sister’s Thneed actually since it was a gift.
“What is a Thneed?” you might ask if you are
unfamiliar with Dr. Seuss’s story of the Lorax. To which I would reply with a
quote from the book:
“This thing is a Thneed.
A Thneed’s a
Fine-Something-That-All-People-Need!
It’s a shirt. It’s a sock. It’s
glove. It’s a hat.
But it has other uses. Yes, far
beyond that.
You can use it for carpets. For
pillows! For sheets!
Or curtains! Or covers for bicycle
seats!”
Now that you know what a Thneed is I must explain.
I knitted a Thneed not in the sense of a multiuse garment crafted from yarn or
wool. Or, if you are familiar with the book, in the sense that I destroyed an
entire ecosystem just to acquire the materials to make my sister a Christmas
present. No, what happened was I set out to make a sweater, but the result
simply looked so ridiculous that it was more appropriate to call it a Thneed.
When my sister first put it on after I finished following all the instructions
and sewing all the pieces together, I laughed for a solid five minutes. She was
not terribly impressed but I just couldn’t contain myself. I worked on it for
three weeks, and it just looked so silly, the arms were too long, the collar
too wide, the midsection much too short… But my sister took it off and I told
her I would fix it and we ended up with this.
Which in the end, just looks more like I’m trying
to start my own fashion trend. This whole story does have a point though
believe it or not. The point is I made that, and even though it didn’t end
up anything like I intended it to, it’s original, and it took some creativity,
and I finished it. It’s a tangible testament to my efforts. Speaking of New
Years resolutions. When people asked me mine this year it was “get my life
together” which is a bit of a joke cause whose resolution isn’t? But I would
elaborate and say something like “get a paying job” or “live in the same place
for more than six months”, which are both things that I still aspire to, but
then I read this article called “6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better
Person”. And, in all honesty? Most of that article didn’t apply to me. It
started off saying “List five impressive things about yourself” with the catch that you’re not allowed to list qualities, such as that you’re nice or
something, just things that you do. Initially this isn’t super easy but
considering I drove across the country by myself, it wasn’t as difficult for me
as for the people I’m assuming this article is actually geared towards. But I
read it anyways and I did come across something that inspired me. This one
question in particular.
“How much of your time
is spent consuming things other people made (TV, music, video games, websites)
versus making your own? Only one of those adds to your value as a human being.”
I might do things that seem impressive like drive
across the country, run sled dogs, move to a completely different city, but I
don’t create that often, or at least not as often as I’d like. Blogging is a
good start because even if its not the finest of writing mediums the article
goes on to point out something that my dad used to tell us. That it takes
10,000 hours of good practice at something to become proficient at it. The
point is that I want to start working on my 10,000 hours, whether its writing,
playing music, knitting or whatever, my New Year’s resolution is to start
putting stuff out into the world that I've made.
And I’d say I’m not off to a bad start already with
that fine looking Thneed.
Article referenced:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person/
Also: The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
