The Sourdough Starter That Became a Science Experiment
Let me tell you about Gerald. That’s what I named my sourdough starter, back when I thought having a pet made of flour and water was the height of pandemic sophistication. Gerald lived on my counter for three months, bubbling away like a mad scientist’s experiment while I fed him religiously and whispered encouragement like some sort of carbohydrate whisperer.
The bread I produced could have been used as a doorstop. Seriously, I once left a loaf on the counter and came back to find it had achieved the density of a small planet. But here’s the thing about failing at sourdough: it teaches you patience in the most visceral way possible. You can’t rush fermentation, can’t fake the timing, can’t Instagram your way to success. It’s just you, some flour, and the humbling realization that our ancestors were basically wizards.
If you’re someone who needs to control every variable in your life, I cannot recommend failing at bread-making highly enough. It will break you down and build you back up, one collapsed loaf at a time. Plus, even terrible bread makes decent croutons, and your friends will be so impressed by your “rustic” approach that they won’t mention the fact that your sourdough could double as construction material.
Learning to Draw: When Your Brain and Hand Refuse to Cooperate
I decided to learn drawing at thirty-five, armed with a set of pencils that cost more than my monthly coffee budget and the misguided confidence that comes from watching too many YouTube tutorials. My first attempt at drawing a simple apple looked like something a toddler might produce during an earthquake. The proportions were wrong, the shading made no sense, and somehow I’d managed to make fruit look actively threatening.
But drawing badly teaches you to really see things, maybe for the first time. You start noticing how shadows fall across your kitchen table, how the curve of a coffee mug isn’t actually a perfect circle, how light behaves in ways you never paid attention to before. It’s like someone handed you a new set of eyes, except these eyes are terrible at their job and keep making everything look like abstract expressionism gone wrong.
This is perfect for anyone who’s forgotten how to be genuinely bad at something new. We spend so much time in our lanes of competence that we forget the specific joy of sucking at stuff. Drawing gives you permission to be absolutely terrible while making you more observant about the world around you. It’s meditation disguised as frustration, and I mean that in the best possible way.
The Guitar Sitting in My Living Room Like a Beautiful Wooden Accusation
Six months ago, I bought a guitar. It’s gorgeous, all warm wood and gleaming strings, sitting in the corner of my living room like a piece of art that occasionally makes me feel guilty. I can play exactly two chords, and I use that term loosely because what comes out when I attempt them sounds more like a cat being gently strangled than anything resembling music.
My fingertips developed calluses that lasted exactly as long as my initial enthusiasm, which is to say about three weeks. Now the guitar is primarily an expensive reminder that learning music as an adult is like trying to teach your brain a completely new language, except this language is made of muscle memory and your muscles have apparently forgotten how to learn new tricks.
If you’re someone who’s always been secretly envious of musicians, I highly recommend getting a guitar and being absolutely terrible at it. Not because you’ll eventually get good, though you might, but because it gives you a deep appreciation for just how much work goes into making something that looks effortless. Every time I hear someone play now, even something simple, I’m genuinely amazed. It’s like watching magic, except I know exactly how hard the magic is because I’ve tried and failed to do it myself.
Meditation: The Practice of Sitting Still and Failing Quietly
Meditation seems like it should be simple. Sit down, close your eyes, focus on your breathing. How hard could it be? Turns out, extremely hard, like trying to herd cats except the cats are your thoughts and they’re all caffeinated and discussing your most embarrassing memories from middle school.
I’ve been “practicing” meditation for about a year now, and I use quotes because what I’m actually practicing is the art of noticing when my mind has wandered off to plan dinner while I’m supposed to be focusing on my breath. Which happens approximately every thirty seconds. My meditation sessions are less “zen master achieving enlightenment” and more “person having a very still panic attack about their to-do list.”
This is ideal for anyone who thinks they’re too busy or scattered to meditate. Because the beautiful secret is that failing at meditation is still meditation. Every time you notice your mind has wandered and bring it back to your breath, that’s the practice. You’re not trying to achieve some perfect state of empty-minded bliss; you’re just practicing the gentle art of paying attention, one distracted moment at a time.
The Joy of Being a Beginner at Everything
There’s something deeply refreshing about being bad at things on purpose. In our regular lives, we tend to stick to what we’re good at, building little fortresses of competence that keep us safe but maybe a little bored. When you deliberately choose to suck at something new, you remember what it feels like to be genuinely challenged, to have your brain work in ways it hasn’t in years.
What are you failing at lately? What have you always wanted to try but haven’t because you know you’ll be terrible at it? I’m collecting recommendations for my next spectacular failure, so if you’ve got something you’re particularly bad at, I’d love to hear about it. Bonus points if it involves making noise, creating something ugly, or requires equipment that will judge me silently from a corner of my house.
