Putney

I sat sat down this murky Thursday to write a blog

But for the life of me I cannot think of a thing to say

Despite looking up Putney’s interesting history,

inspiration has not come.

So here’s something different I thought you might like.

It’s from an author who never visited Putney but gave me so much pleasure in another life.

“When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.”

– Kurt Vonnegut. h/t Anna Macedo

I looked up the “h/t” and it means Hat Tip.

So from that I’d say Anna Macedo dug out that little story from Kurt’s writings.

PS. The sun will come out tomorrow.