Many intersting side projects
A few days ago, I checked the "a smol miscellanea" blog. One of those interesting blogs I discovered recently. He/She is making one daily drawing since 2024 and posts it on the blog. Now it has ca. 680 drawings. It catched my attention instantly. I checked some of the drawings, and remembered my own wish to learn drawing. I even ruminated about the idea of starting to learn drawing again. But tried to block this idea because of two reasons.
First, I gave drawing a try a few times in the past. But each time, I ended up giving up after a few drawings. During school times, there was a nice art accessories shop nearby. I remember, it was one of my favorite places, going there and seeing all the drawing tools and books that teach how to draw. A few times, I bought some books. But never practiced them with the commitment it needs to really learn to draw.
This is not limited to drawing. There is a big list of side projects and hobbies that I started and gave up after a short time. Different sport types, coding projects, a few other writing and blogging projects before this blog (I hope this one does not end up like the last ones), and so on.
Second, I have a few side-projects currently which take almost all of my free time, and I do not want to add another one to the list.
I try to do sports more reguarly. Next to running, and commuting to work by bike, I started to improve my swimming technique recently.
At the moment, I am learning new subjects via two apps: Artly and Kinnu. I want to make it a daily habit.
For our upcomming vacation to mexico, my wife and I decided to learn basic spanish. I am not ambitious about learning the language to advanced level, but like to learn at least the begginer level (maybe even after the vacation).
This blog. So far the experience has been pretty good and I enjoy writing here every now and then, eventhough it is pretty unknown. Plus, my daily journaling habit which I try to be more consistent.
I like to keep my hobby of going to the mountains and even do it more often.
Adding a new hobby like drwaing, which eventually can be time-consuming if I want to get good at, would mean increasing the risk of giving up on some of my side projects. I am afraid of another unfinished project, another failure.
Perhaps I'm too hard on myself. It's true that I gave up on some projects in the past, but I stayed commited to some of them. Except some short breaks because of life conditions, I have been running regularly since more than 5 years, and commuting by bike more than 1 year. I have read a big list of books since I started reading books more seriously. Perhaps all those unfinished projects were experiments and iterations to find what truely makes me satisfied and in its suitable format for me.
Plus, starting to draw again doesn't necessarily mean to do it seriously. It doesn't have to be perfect. I can just do that every now and then when I feel the urge in myself to do something different. The same applies for blogging. I did not start this blog with a fixed number of posts to write each week or each month. I wanted to have a space to share my thoughts whenever I feel I have something to say.
So, maybe I start to draw again. Just occasionally. Just to feel the joy of doing something I've wanted to do for a long time.