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

[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.)