Limitattions

Wrong,



Better,



I do know that I am an intelligent person. I also know the limits of my intelligence and knowledge. I'm always working on those gaps, but I also know in what ways there will always be huge gaps. I think that is part of being smart enough, being able to see how far the road goes on, and how little fuel I have left. I will never be as smart as any crossword compiler, my uncle Walt, or our friend N, for instance. I'm crap at rote memorization, spacial relationships, arithmetic, and I'm not a fast thinker most of the time.

Puzzles are a great challenge, sudoku a practice in seeing numbers - that I still screw up, and I rarely get a late-week crossword puzzle off perfectly. No expert I. I've had to work at anything I wanted to understand. Doable, but not easy, ever. I worked for every A I got in school, and I got a lot of them. Lots of school prizes, and I never cared, because I knew how good it could be, and I had not gotten there. Playing a musical instrument, oh, my do I know how it feels to be inept.

This is part of why I love writing and photography, because I don't really understand, and I have to put everything into getting it attractive and legible, readable. I make progress. I know good writing, and good photographs. I can see what it takes, see when they are really worthwhile. I can't do them, save the occasional lucky shot, the odd essay that transcends my skill. As all artists who occasionally transcend their skill, a period of extreme inspiration and talent, a masterwork, often never to be regained. A minor version of the To Kill a Mockingbird experience, as Harper Lee has admitted, when the story wants to be told, and one amazing book emerges. What else could anyone want?

I work at it, so if a photo wants me to take it, a story wants me to tell it, maybe I'll be able, ready, at the right time. No guarantees. There never are.