This year, as another broad resolution, I’m giving myself permission to try things I haven’t done before… and to fail, if necessary.

I’m not good at everything. Some of the things I want to do are things I’ve never done before. Some of them are straight from the list of Things Karen Sucks At. Well, let’s be honest… it’s a long list, and some of them are pretty fun, anyway. Some of them are nice breaks from Things Karen Works Her Ass Off to Be Good At or Things Karen Does to Pay For Celery and Raisins.

Let go. Do it, anyway.

I don’t have to be good at everything I do in order to benefit from doing it.

So, that deer skull I have? The one I’ve been planning to incise or explode, or just paint? I can do that, and it doesn’t matter that I don’t have the faintest idea what kind of paint works well on bone, or that I’m probably clumsy enough to shatter the whole damn thing when I start cutting.

Bring on the deer skull.

And that clock I’ve been thinking of building? It’s not like I don’t have most of the pieces. Yes, I’ll probably burn myself with the solder, and the damn thing will probably run backwards and three minutes fast, but why not?

And why not do whatever else comes along?

It doesn’t have to be good. It just has to be interesting. And it doesn’t even have to be interesting for all that long.

I’m giving myself permission to try it, anyway.

Try, fail… add another experience to the collection, another paradigm to draw from.

I’ll probably drag you along for the ride, when I can. After all, what’s the point of having a blog, if I can’t make you cringe along with me, as I cut up a deer skull, or miss my target with the atlatl darts, or incinerate the shed, trying to put together a clock I could’ve bought for five bucks at the dollar store?