Self-improvers

I've always been a 'self-improver'. It started when I was a kid and it doesn't seem to be showing any sign of slowing down anytime soon. For most of my life, it's been a blessing. On the other hand, there are plenty of occasions when I wish I could just flip the switch and turn off the whole self-improvement thing. Just lie back and reflect on the need to do absolutely nothing of any value. But I can't. It's not the way I'm made.

What do I mean? It's hard to define exactly what 'self-improvement' or 'self-improvers' are all about. It's pretty easy to spot them though. They (we) are always on 'courses', or in the library, or trying to perfect a new trick, or learning a language, or training for the marathon, or...You get the picture. It's not just about being obsessive. There are loads of ways to be obsessive without aiming to achieve the slightest benefit; most 'avid collectors' or warriors in the 'World of Warcraft' fit this last category. No, this is something more specific than mere fascination and nerdiness. This is about facing up to the idea that you are never 'finished'. Harking back to the glory days of the great 'Amateur', pursuing the notion that the best things in your life are the things that you do for yourself and that this pursuit deserves all of your attention.

I've obsessively developed more tricks and skills than I can count. My life is peppered with certificates and half-abandoned apparatus, the things that chart my apoplectic progress through many fields of bizarre human endeavour. I may even request in my will that our loft is left untouched after my death, just to confuse future archaeologists to buggery. I wonder what strange religious practice they could surmise for a juggling club, a flipper, some harmonicas, a tripod and a compass?

Not unusually, I've just finished another course. No certificate though; shame, I could have put it with the other ones in the loft. The latest improvement, (over 8 weeks in evening classes at the local college), is in my 'Photoshop Skills (beginners)'. As usual, I enjoyed it thoroughly. I was thinking about the other 'improvers' on the course, while I was running on the treadmill in the gym at 6.30 the morning after, with a different set of 'improvers'. What did they all have in common? On the face of it, not much. In fact, there was quite some social distance between the old woman in the sweatshirt emblazoned with 'Dog Person' and Max the DJ, or Sam the ceramicist, (I think that means 'clever potter'). Their reasons for being there seemed to bare no real similarity either. The point of convergence only really emerged at the end of the last session, when the Old-Dog-Person-Woman announced that she'd discovered a class for 'Photoshop Skills (Intermediate)' at a college twenty miles away. Everyone agreed, we'd all see each other there in January. Failing that, there is always 'Conversational Italian' on Tuesdays. The simple fact of it is that doing something useful, however irrelevant, is always better than doing nothing. Now where did I put that Italian dictionary? Oh yes, I remember now, it's in the loft with the others.

Still a pity about the certificate, though. I could always make myself one in Photoshop.