I’ve spent my whole life writing. When I was a kid, I kept a diary, detailing all the memories I wanted to recall when I got older. Every time I felt lonely or sad, all I had to do was to take out a pen and a notebook and write something down. Books were my friends In them, I found many people who were just like me. These were sad characters who didn’t fit in. Or even if they did, I found a little bit of myself in them. It made sense for me to read about them, because I related to them in some way. This was the only thing I was allowed to do that made it seem like I was doing work. I wasn’t allowed to cook or to bake, or to even do anything remotely messy because the cleaning up with horrifying.
And that was how writing became my only skill. Until now. Before that, I lived in a house that was a prison, and I was not allowed to explore my many interests. Now that I can, and have had time during the pandemic, I realise that it’s so important, as a creative person, to explore myriad interests.
You see, I had based my identity as someone who writes, and suddenly, when I failed at writing—I failed at doing something really big—I felt like I didn’t know who I was anymore. I knew that it was stupid to tie myself to writing, but when you grow up being restricted from exploring, you limit yourself from growing.
I have learnt so many skills during the pandemic, and I’m learning more. I won’t bore you with too many details, but one of them is baking. I learnt to make so many different kinds of cookies, pies, and cakes. Here are some pictures to show you. And honestly, it’s liberating.
With writing, I put a lot of pressure, or rather, I feel a lot of pressure to write the perfect poem, or the perfect short story, or whatever. Maybe some people can’t tell from my work, but it feels like ten million people are writing better, more perfect stories, and that I am lost in the dust.
With baking and all my other hobbies, I gave myself permission to suck. I told myself that it didn’t matter if the dough wasn’t as consistent as the one in the YouTube video; so long as it came out edible or even delicious, that was great. I also found an encouraging baking YouTuber to watch, and he made everything look so easy. I didn’t have to be good at this; I just had to enjoy myself.
My whole life was spent trying to be good at something, and even though I knew that it was OK to suck. But after failing at writing, I decided that I was going to heck it and fail at everything else. And when I failed at making chocolate chip cookies, or something else, I realised that I could go back and improve on what I was doing, and create something better. That was how I went from baking simple things like cookies and brownies to something like a lemon tart.
And I’m not going to stop.
I think it’s important to have other interests. It’s not only because it helps with writing, although it is a nice side benefit. It’s so that life can be more vibrant and interesting.
It reminds me of the Kurt Vonnegut story of how he met an archaeologist at a dig—you know the one. But in learning that I don’t have to be perfect, I free up the time to hone on what I’m interested in and get to be better at it. It is only then that maybe, just maybe, I will one day be good at my craft (although it’s OK if I’m not, too.)