things i'm starting to believe

01 Nov, 2026

the gold coast from burleigh beach, through sea mist.

i am starting to believe that i could become reasonably good at most things if i kept doing them. i like how much this leaves available. there are things i have been interested in for years and barely begun to learn. i can still begin. the elapsed time does not have to count against me, though i have often counted it that way. i feel i ought to be further along because i first wanted something a long time ago, forgetting how few hours i may have actually given it.

it is possible to have wanted something for years and still be quite new to it. this has been a surprisingly pleasant discovery. i can return with the expectations of someone learning, rather than someone who should already know. i do not have to account for the whole gap first. i am good at accounting for gaps. i can spend most of an evening considering why i stopped, whether i am serious, and what will be different this time, when whatever interested me in the first place is still there, waiting to be done.

some of this has been on my mind because of work, and the news around work. microsoft announced its voluntary exit offer, then reported higher revenue and profit two days later.¹ i do not work there, but i recognise the hope that becoming more useful will make the future feel more secure. i cannot be certain how much security it provides. still, i am glad there are things i have learnt that i can take with me. they turn up in unexpected places, sometimes years after i thought i had finished with them. i would like to keep learning without asking every new interest to be a contingency plan.

i am beginning to notice a pleasure in understanding things i had not paid much attention to before. i do not remember feeling this quite so often, though perhaps i was too occupied with what remained difficult to notice. it is a small thing: returning to a problem and finding somewhere to begin, or realising that something no longer needs explaining. i would like to linger there occasionally before moving on.

i have also been asking early attempts for quite a lot. i would like them to contain evidence that the later ones will be worth making. when something goes badly, i become occupied with the faults and forget to look for anything i would keep. perhaps a decision was better, or i noticed a mistake sooner, or there was a small part i liked without knowing quite how it happened. i would like to remember that part when i return. it seems a shame to discard the useful things along with my disappointment.

in an earlier post, i wrote about a machine-learning result we had reported as 88% accurate. the number held up, but it measured agreement with groups another algorithm had created. we had not established how well those groups matched the physical behaviour we wanted to understand.² i recognise something of that habit in how i judge my own attempts. i can see that a result is disappointing, then assume it tells me how good i could ever become. the attempt has given me rather less information than that. sometimes i may simply have become discerning enough to recognise a fault before learning how to correct it. i would like to give myself another few attempts to find out.

other people help, often in ways i barely mention afterwards. someone explains something patiently, points out what i missed, or takes enough interest to ask how it is going. in byron, i bought a notebook and sat outside the bookshop drawing the trees, a bench and whatever happened to be in front of me. i wrote afterwards that A likes it when i sketch.³ i like that she likes it. i can become so concerned with whether the result is good that i pass over how pleasant it is to sit beside someone who is happy to see me doing it. there was more happening that afternoon than a drawing being made.

i am beginning to appreciate leaving things alone for a night, too. my instinct is often to stay until i have solved the difficulty, partly because i would prefer to finish the evening feeling capable. that is quite a lot to require before going to bed. i could leave the attempt as it is and come back after sleeping. perhaps the error will be obvious. perhaps something i had been trying to remove will seem worth keeping. i like the possibility of being surprised by my own work once i have forgotten some of the effort involved in making it.

when i return, one thing to change would probably be enough. i do not need to resolve every fault in the same sitting. sometimes i will need help finding the thing, and sometimes the change will make matters worse. at least there will be something to compare. i would like to become comfortable enough with this that a difficult attempt does not require a long conversation about whether i should continue. i could just leave myself a note and go to bed.

giving things that much attention probably means doing fewer of them. i am starting to find this appealing, even though choosing remains difficult. each interest needs time to become absorbing, time for me to misunderstand it, and another afternoon in which to return. i wrote about being able to remember our repeated cafe mornings separately, while whole weekdays seemed to disappear. the bookshop hours stayed too: A reading first pages along the fiction shelves, me wandering through several aisles before returning to something i had already put down.⁴ we gave those hours very little else to contain. i would be glad to have more like them.

some interests can remain occasional pleasures. i can enjoy them without needing to establish whether i am improving. others matter enough that i would like to find out what sustained attention might make possible. there is a certain generosity in leaving them enough room. i have usually thought of choosing fewer things as giving something up, but i might enjoy an afternoon more if it did not contain quite so many things i could also be doing.

so the recipe is small:

make an attempt → sleep on it → notice what to keep and what to change → start over

and choose few enough things that i can return to them. i do not know how far this will take me. i like that there is still a way to find out. for tonight, there is probably something unfinished that i would enjoy spending another hour with.