Last year I started on my hunting license, which includes shooting a shotgun and I was, for a considerable period, genuinely terrible at it. Not only bad, but much worse than others who were new at it. And what surprised me was how strongly I disliked being seen in it. There is a specific discomfort in being a beginner when you are senior, and it is quite different from the discomfort of being a beginner at twenty. At twenty, being bad at things is your job. At fifty, the beginner state feels almost like a category error.

I think this is why most people stop starting things, and they rarely notice it happening. It is not usually a decision. It causes you to end up smack in the middle of your comfort zone and expertise becomes a cage with very comfortable furnishings. And the cruel part is that the cage tightens, because everyone around you is treating you as the person who knows things, which is pleasant, and which confirms that staying inside was correct.

The case for deliberately being bad at something is partly about the thing itself and mostly about the state it puts you in. Being a genuine beginner restores something that expertise quietly erodes: the experience of visible, rapid improvement, the willingness to ask a stupid question, and a tolerance for looking foolish. The requirement is simply that it be real. Something at which you are, for now, plainly and unarguably bad. So, as a reflection for today: when were you last a beginner? And what are you avoiding starting because you would not be good at it?