Getting Good at Doing Things Badly

‘There are so many things to be bad at; I’ve decided finally to be good at being bad at things. So far I’m doing brilliantly’.

Bryant was demonstrating his new found art by making the usual hash of ironing his shirt for the day. Barely ironed, it lost any ‘ironed-ness’ it ever had the moment he put it on. All he had achieved was a ‘not quite as rumpled as it was’ effect. Not an entire waste of electricity but close to it.

He was also bad at grammer.

And spelling…

What he’d found though was a certain emotional release through not having to be good at things. Since he’d stopped even trying to be so very conscientious at work the results had come rolling in. There was even talk of promotion.

He was also good at not knowing things! He’d replaced the gnawing doubt and sense of failure of not knowing the answer to a question with a resounding ‘I don’t know’ followed by a laugh of pure delight. How refreshing, he’d thought, not to have to know things.

Why such an urgent need to be good at things?

He’d tuned his guitar to an unknown tuning and sounded better than he had for years. Audiences had applauded his ‘free-jazz/folk style’ as innovative. He hadn't a clue what he was playing and had certainly never heard it before.

‘The new Bert Jansch’ they’d called him (all three of them) and he was sure he could hear old Bert spinning in his grave.

He’d discovered that people had despised him for ‘being good at things and clever’. ‘A right smart-arse’ they’d now affectionately recollect ‘Always had to be right’. People didn’t realise the all-pervading underlying fear of inferiority that fuelled his desire ‘to be good at things’. His mother would be about to ask him a clue from her Daily Mail crossword and he’d leave the room rather than have to answer it. He’d go sit in the toilet until he deemed it a safe bet that she’d have forgotten.

You see, there were so many crossword clues he didn't know the answer to. It was like walking through a minefield visiting her.

His father, looking up from his ubiquitous book, would begin a sentence ‘You’ll know this, son!’ and he may as well have said ‘this red-hot poker to your genitals, my boy’ for the crushing anxiety his words inspired. Once, he ran out of the house claiming urgent business, and visited the local library to ‘bone-up’ on the relevant subject matter (usually Stalin, gulags or Hitler) to at least give himself a fighting chance.

‘I don’t know Da’ would have invoked a look of mildly baffled consternation on his father’s face. He had a degree. He ought to know everything.

Ninety-nine percent a father’s pride; one-per-cent revenge.

He’d had a t-shirt made with words emblazoned in vivid crimson…

‘I don’t know, and if I did I wouldn't tell you’

He begins to brush his shoes, making sure to do it badly.