I have done quite a bit of painting and caulking for a guy who's not in the profession. I despise both with a passion, though, especially caulking, and I have never once been satisfied with a single paint or caulk job I've done. I feel like I'm the embodiment of "be bad at this for a long time," although I'm objectively probably halfway decent at it.
That is to say I think Ira Glass' quote of "You've just gotta fight your way through" to get where you want to be seems especially meaningful in the context of something like painting, where most everyone _can_ do it (or writing / storytelling in Ira's case), but very few are actually good at it.
There's one UK guy on YouTube that convinced me of the evils of water/iso sprays and the beauty of the proper silicone caulking tool.
The little wedge shaped caulking tools btw are not enough, as you need some stick to it so you can get around certain angles/items.
I eventually got rather good, albeit slow, and now can easily finish a wall where you can’t find butt or tapered seams with a flashlight, with minimal sanding. It took many hundreds of hours over the years, and a clear idea of what the bar was, for me to get there. The results still bring me joy, but more also the intuition built up around working with mud translated to a quick ramp up for more ambitious projects with stucco and concrete.
At least you limited yourself to human scale hand-y work.
An engineer type can go down some dark yak holes trying to find solutions to achieve inhuman flatness
It's about honing ability and competence.
I only just learnt about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi
Perhaps "artisinal" encompasses the idea?
Ira Glass is imperfect perfectionism.
When my mom was in her late 60's having never done any work with drywall or mud, taping, floating, etc and attempting to make lemonade out of a situation where every room in the house was being sheetrocked because Dad was actively using some of his many skills to convert their house into a home, she became creative and produced a collection of decorative walls that anyone could admire.
There are rag-rolled walls with layers of colors over imperfect textures. There are walls painted a neutral background color and then combed with spectacular streaks. Some rooms are wavy and others are vertical lines. She layered colors and textures because the drywall, after all the work was done had textural flaws and places where use of a single color would make all the imperfections pop like Shiprock from the New Mexico plain. It was hard making 1/4" (6.3mm) drywall hide all the changes to the structure and the shiplap that had happened in the 80 years (80 years) since the house was built.
My favorite walls are in a hallway with nearly 10' (~3m) ceilings. She used a variable depth texture, thicker than anywhere else in the house and knocked relatively flat though with plenty of knife swirls randomly distributed. In the heavy texture she used a leaf print to impress hundreds of oak leaves from floor to ceiling in random orientations as if they are all falling. The colors are autumn colors with a light base and darker accents that create additional shadowing. It really is beautiful and is quite original.
Every time I walk that hallway I hear:
The leaves are falling all around, time I was on my way.
Thanks to you I'm much obliged for such a pleasant stay.
But now it's time for me to go. The autumn moon lights my way.
With the original oak hardwood floor painted a nice checkerboard pattern and the trim all Dad's handiwork it is really great.
And they had these minor-superhero things they could do.
Like he could hammer around a corner. You would think it wasn't a big deal, but he could put wire staples places where a beginner or a fancy staple gun couldn't reach.
Because of the way the strands are laid, wire has a direction and way it "wants" to go. I'd been an electrician twenty years by that point and knew how to work it. Not strength. Not that I said any of that.
Might not be as strong or fast as he used to be, but knows how to do it smartly.
Sometimes the problem truly requires strength and brute force, but not usually.
Even something like taking up concrete. It seems straight forward but you can waste a lot of energy hitting the wrong places.
Friend of mine worked in Prisons for a while, and has a way of telling the difference between people with a lot of muscle and people who know how leverage their musculature to high effect.
You get enough experience and you can turn a bolt or screw and tighten it to stretch a little.
Not too little (doesn't hold parts together and/or can come loose).
Not too much (uneven tightening or snap/strip something).
Just right (torque wrenches make this precise).
Oh, I love this so much. It communicates so many important things in one go.
My kids must be absolutely sick of me saying in a dozen different ways "you just have to do it a lot."
This also reminds me of how I've often responded when people ask me about learning to code. I ask them if they're ok with sitting in front of a computer for many hours.
It sounds obvious, but most people (in my experience) simply aren't ok with that, and hadn't considered it.
I wonder if this puts people off who shouldn't be put off.
I certainly don't think I'd want that for myself if asked. But coding doesn't feel like that. Sure, I sit in front of a computer for hours, but productive sessions generally involve losing track of time and realising you've been sat there for hours
When I am teaching anyone any of these skills, the first thing I say is “are you ready to be bad at this for a long time?” Sometimes it catches people off guard. On the other hand, if someone says “yes” then I know that they are going to be a good learner.