Or real just do something useless that you love.
Rodney Mullen, folks. That's a lifetime's dedication. That's more than 10,000 hours, and it wasn't spent kissing ass in country clubs coughdanmclaughlincough. It was spent running from the cops, demonized by society, with no one writing highbrow articles about how noble of an "experiment" it was/is (ongoing, he still skates at age 48). It wasn't an experiment, it was the only thing he ever wanted to do. Eventually, a lot of the world gave props to the father of the fucking kickflip, but it took us long enough. There's just something so gorgeous about the precariousness of skateboarding. I think it reminds me of the fragility of life as a whole, although typically confined to the wrists and ankles. I just wish there wasn't such a cultural stigma attached to protective gear amongst skateboarders, particularly helmets. And that's how you know I'm probably past the age of haphazardly flinging my body off of high objects on a rolling plank. But maybe not... mk, b_b Edit: Hold on, now, I'm having a vision... It's.. It's a Hubski skate meetup! It starts in the back of Costco and either ends in prison or a med clinic. Holy shit, I'll be there.
I completely understand what he means by this.I sat tiredly for years in the MDF stalls of lecture theatres doing my best not to put too much effort into getting my History of Art degree. Elderly professors with dishevelled wispy white hair and poorly hidden hip flasks showed us the traditionalism of the Old Masters, the sheer weirdness of Mannerism, the bounding innovations of the Early Renaissance. Younger, hipper, lecturing PHD students with glasses without any lenses in them told us about the clarity of Conceptualism, the ambition of the Constructivists, and pomposity of Post-post Modernism. The fact is, for me, skateboarding is better, more attractive, more packed with profundity than all of it put together. No piece of art I’ve ever seen moves me as much as seeing Ishod Wair effortlessly navigate the street furniture of Philadelphia, or watching Austyn Gillette float through the concrete banality of LA.
I think beauty is the thing that so many people miss in "silly" hobbies. Not that G.K. Chesterton is exactly my favourite person to quote, but "A man must love a thing very much if he practices it without any hope of fame or money, but even practice it without any hope of doing it well." I have so much respect for the older amateurs whom I've met over the course of playing and teaching. Those folks are the ones who keep the real spirit and purpose of music alive - To create beauty, and for that beauty to be enjoyed by others.
I'm approaching 30 faster than I would like to admit, but I bought a skateboard a few months ago because "why have a 10 minute walk to work when it can be a few minute skate! downhill!" Turns out even little hills produce a lot of speed quickly, and skating up hill isn't very fun. I have only skated to work a handful of time because of that. However, it has been a fun experience to learn and I'm glad I gave it a try. I was never terribly interested when I was younger, always busy with other things and didn't feel like I fit in with the "skater" crowd which seemed more concerned with drugs and the image being a skater projected. It is immensely humbling and freeing at the same time. It took me hours to feel comfortable just rolling around on a flat surface. I'm only able to make the time every other week or so, so I don't make much progress, but just pushing around an empty parking lot is almost meditative. I have to be paying enough attention to not let my form fall apart or get tripped up on a rock, but after a while my mind can drift and I enter the flow. I wear a helmet and accept that kids over half my age can skate circles around me and do flips over me. I haven't even tried to ollie yet, but I'd like to. What really make me nervous are all the hills where I live.
I bought a board with big soft wheels for transportation and quickly came to a similar conclusion. "Wow 50% of my foot commute is so much easier. And 50% is worse when I have to hop off this thing and carry it around like some asshole." Maybe if I lived in Iowa things would have been different.