what do you do SO well...?

[ceelove]

A few weeks ago, massaging nacht_musik, something occurred to me.

I've been doing massage for so long, it's so intuitive and second-nature these days, that it's hard to comprehend *not* being able to touch people and get a sense of what to do for them. Like, how can anyone not? It's so obvious! I know it isn't true for most people, and it wasn't always true for me, but it's so present now, so much a part of me, that I can't imagine myself not experiencing it that way.

I commented to him that it must be similar for him, making music, and he agreed.

I've since been wondering, how common is it? Do YOU have something that doing well - sometimes effortlessly, automatically, just falling into it - is so intrinsic to who you are, that you can't imagine yourself not being able to?

Comments

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

Assimilating information quickly and then explaining it to others.

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

Oh, also -- hearing the beat in music and moving my body in time with it.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I do! But how would I know what it is? :)

[ceelove.livejournal.com]

I would assume something about languages, for you. And, for lack of a better phrase, generating cool ideas.

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

Fixing things, especially computers. I can tell by certain responses where I need to go and what needs to be done. It's like how a sculptor sees the finished product inside the wood.

[coraline]

music is like that for me -- i don't remember not knowing how to play the violin, not having the ability to hear a melody and immediately play it back.

and i wouldn't have thought of it except for hearing dpolicar talk about it, but for most of us, walking is like that... it's very weird to imagine it not being automatic.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Remembering.

Recognizing that my memory is already not what it once was is troubling to me. Alzheimers, amnesia, and other forms of memory-impairment are deeply terrifying.

[amber-phoenix.livejournal.com]

some cooking - nothing compared to the masters i know, but more natural and intuitive to me than to most.

also, editing, which to me is a more interesting answer as I haven't studied writing, but I'm a great second pair of eyes particularly correspondence.

um...

[amber-phoenix.livejournal.com]

of course the editing skill might be better show-cased if I weren't typing while nursing...

[tisana.livejournal.com]

I almost said dance or art, but no--both of those require some thinking about and sweating and work, still.

I guess...mimicking. Which is often how I learn things.

[goat.livejournal.com]

I have absolutely no idea what it would be like to not be able to swim. I can't remember not knowing how.

Also, music. Not so much playing an instrument, though I did learn that quite young...but knowing how to really hear it, how to count the beat, feel the rhythm, isolate different instruments in my mind, etc. I am really curious what music sounds like to the untrained ear.

[jadia.livejournal.com]

Reading!

[badlittlemonkey.livejournal.com]

Writing. And I mean that both in a creative/expressive sense and as a practical matter -- whenever I encounter people who just have no ability to write out thoughts, facts or ideas coherently (which happens more often than I'd like, even among the very smart people I work with), it absolutely boggles my mind.

[arachne8x.livejournal.com]

Dance. I've been doing it since age 4.

[clara-girl.livejournal.com]

dancing.
loving.
reading.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

writing. using computers. both are ingrained.

[gentlescholar.livejournal.com]

Freshman math and science courses, and explaining how they work to others.

It is actually part of my job to avoid the, "how can anybody not get this?" pitfall. But I still sometimes do. Figuring out that 35 minutes is 35/60 of an hour and that the minute hand of a clock has moved 35/60 of the way around the circle...how do I explain how to get that? I just *see* it.

Then again, my gift is really finding ways to explain what it doesn't seem should need explaining.

[entrope.livejournal.com]

Knitting. It was a complete mystery to me until pretty recently, but it's become the mindless physical repetition that running used to be. Fortunately though, I don't have to knit 15 miles for my brain to turn off.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

well, mostly what my research is about: language. of course, i think that's pretty much true of everyone with a normally-functioning brain.

i also think i'm a bit more adept at it than most people, but that's a matter of degree, not type.

i also feel the same way about music and kiatsu, though, so what do i know? it's hard to tell what's instinctive from what's learned, since everything we can learn has to build on the hardwiring we started with anyway. i'm an english speaker, but if it had gone another way i might be similarly fluent in, say, nicaraguan sign :)

[thatwesguy.livejournal.com]

Making people obviously smarter.

[redheadedmuse.livejournal.com]

magic.

[ceelove.livejournal.com]

Would that that came easier to me...

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

Dancing
Healing
Ritual
Empathizing
Protecting

[lady-anemone.livejournal.com]

Energywork is the biggest one for me. But I think you probably guessed that already. Reading is the second one. I can't imagine myself as a person that doesn't read or do energywork.

[veek.livejournal.com]

Play with language(s). Not that it doesn't take any thought, but a large part of the process is not conscious.

Also, there's a certain zen about cooking. And empathy -- I sometimes wish I could turn that one off, to be honest.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

"And empathy -- I sometimes wish I could turn that one off, to be honest."

Yeah. I realized that one of the reasons I find IM so fatiguing is that when someone is telling me their troubles I feel the emotions the same way I would if they were sitting in the room with me and I was mirroring them. More so, actually, since I have to pull emotional content out of lower bandwidth.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

Solving problems, figuring out what's wrong with something that's broken, understanding how something works, figuring out what needs to be done, coming up with a way to get from point A to Point B.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Keeping models of other people in my head.

I can try to explain, but I'm not good at explaining it, since I don't really believe everyone else doesn't do it.

All the people I care about, I have a model of them in my head, and it includes what they're likely to be doing at anytime, and how they react to stuff. And the better I know people the more data I add to the model.

Mundane stuff like strong food likes and dislikes, and complicated stuff like their personalities.

Also reading. I can't imagine being pre-literate, or even not being able to read sideways and upside down.

[catness.livejournal.com]

Heh. The problem with keeping models in one's head is when the person changes but the model doesn't. Allowing the model to grow with the person is pretty key. :)

[beah.livejournal.com]

Reading is so natural to me, so intrinsic to my world and the way I interact with it, that I have a very hard time imagining what it would be like to be illiterate, or what a magical power it was to be one of the few who was literate in times long gone.

Writing is something I do effortlessly even when I am focusing every ounce of my energy on it - if that makes sense. I can be working incredibly hard at it, burning resources on it, and it's still just bringing something from the inside of me to the outside. But I totally grok that this is a special talent, and that many people can't write at all, so it feels like it's in a different category than reading.

[ceelove.livejournal.com]

Interesting, that so many people have referenced reading, which I kind of take as a given - and that, being a slow reader with poor retention. It is indeed so interwoven with my self-concept, it goes back much further than touching, but I don't even consider it, because...*everyone* reads, right?

Writing is not effortless, but the musical is inspired, with that getting-out-of-my-own-way feel that characterizes touch for me.

[ceelove.livejournal.com]

Though typing *is* effortless. There are people who type slowly in the world? Really?

[beah.livejournal.com]

Ah, see, typing was a hard-learned skill for me. My mother insisted that I *would* learn to touch type, because she'd made money in college by typing other students' papers. Of course, as soon as I learned to type, I determined that it was not a skill I wanted to be known for, because I am capable of so much more than 90+ flawless words per minute. So while it's effortless now, I put a lot of thought into learning to type and considering to what use I wanted to put the skill. (In fact, I have occasionally been hired to take notes at meetings, because I type so fast that it's more like taking dictation in real-time.)

[catness.livejournal.com]

Music, social analysis, organizing... stuff.

Used to be memory, too, but that went away. I don't have to imagine how much it would suck to lose something that's integral to myself.

[cos]

Hard to say. On the one hand, I think I change and shift what I do every few years so nothing takes on that place in my life for so long that ... but on the other hand, if something did, would I know what it was? Possibly, getting to know new people. I can't imaging not wanting to do that, or not being able to.

[abilouise.livejournal.com]

Massage. I can still teach some aspects of it, but I can't break down what I'm doing and why in any given moment anymore. Cooking and reading and cross-country-skiing. The key moment for me with things like this is when I'm past the point where I could teach another person how to do it. Massage I THINK I could still teach because a) I still have all my notes and b) I was a teaching assistant for long enough that I understand how to break it down for another person. I still couldn't teach anyone to give massages like I do, but I can maybe sort of teach people how to start giving massages the way that they would.

[starphire.livejournal.com]

Visualizing things.
Washing dishes.
Cooking.

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Auditory memory. Not after only hearing something once, though. It's not immediate.

But once I have something in long-term storage, I can recognise it again immediately, without fail. It's like a tape recording playing in my head. Which makes it easy to sing/play songs and movies in my head, but also makes me really obnoxious when other people misquote movies or song lyrics. ;-)

[hakamadare.livejournal.com]

i spell words!

[dancingwolfgrrl.livejournal.com]

Reading words, for sure: I know about illiteracy, but it never occurs to me as a limiting factor on someone. Also reading music -- I honestly did not parse until I was probably 16 or 17 that not everyone could do it, and I can't remember looking at a page of music and not being able to read it. Swimming, also; I *know* that there are adults who can't do it, but I'm invariably surprised by any instance thereof. Touch-typing, which I forget that not all adults automatically know how to do.

I didn't learn until I was a teenager that not everyone could do laundry, either, or cook even in a basic way, but I believe that everyone should be able to do these things, which seems kind of different.

Possibly most importantly, solving problems. When I have a problem, I basically believe that it must be possible to overcome it. When I lived in my first apartment and this happened a lot, I would sit there thinking "ok, but I know that people don't just live with their kitchen drawers stuck shut for their whole lives, so there *must* be some way to overcome this." An unfortunate side-effect of this is that I find it annoying when people ask me to help them with something trivial that they clearly haven't already tried to solve on their own.

[fernling.livejournal.com]

Teaching small groups...well, at least about a few subjects! I love being able to work with my TA-size labs, because I can really TELL if I'm getting it across, and keep on using metaphors until I get the recognition I'm keeping an eye out for. Of course, this is only true when given adequate time. But the other part of teaching, the getting-'em-jazzed, that I can do almost regardless of hurry! Whee!
Also, I think I might one day be able to put "photo composition" into that category of know-it-so-well-I-don't-notice. I've gotten a lot of compliments lately on my photography, which is um, a bit amazing to me because I know so many extraordinarily good photographers and I'm completely blown away by their stuff and the medium in general. (One of my two faves!) Anyway, I don't know that I'm spectacular, but what I do know is that I don't have to think too much about it, it's just obvious how I want to aim my point-n-shoot, even though I'm not doing anything fancy with filters or waiting patiently for hours on a mountaintop or anything professional-seeming. So framing instant shots is nigh second-nature to me. Maybe this is just more obvious because I recently loaded Cory up with photos from our various and sundry trips, and most of them are my pics, not ones he took with my camera--cause most of his don't turn out well. And the best ones of his? Are the ones where I told him exactly what I wanted and how to put it all together. Huh. So, yeah, no Ansel Adams, but I hold my own, and it's something I really enjoy. Man, I could DIG being a paid photographer, if teaching wasn't so nifty. 'Specially if they paid for my travel to exotic locales.... Here I am, just back from vacation, and already pining? AUGH!

[michigansundog.livejournal.com]

Soldering precious metal. I can look at other people soldering and know exactly what is about to happen. After years of observing metal, I have an extremely sensitive understanding of how heat will disperse when applied. It has become second-nature.

[orpheusrabbit.livejournal.com]

dancing. using an espresso machine (or really, anything to do with coffee shop work). writing without making frequent spelling or grammatical errors. i actually ponder this question a lot, myself. it fascinates me how much we tend not only to take our skills for granted after their attainment, but to project our aptitude onto the world around us, subliminally....until proven otherwise. repeatedly.