Thanks goes to @curiositry from The Autodidacts for the idea of a page dedicated to listing and sharing things one does not know how to do. Check out his thorough introduction, explanation, and example of this idea here.
My list is below, along with random skills that I do know. If they happen to be something you’d like to know how to do, reach out to me via the contact page, and I’d be happy to help.
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Things I don’t know how to do…
- Keep up with movie references (or pop culture references in general) without first spending half a life ingesting content I couldn’t care less about. (Sometimes the cause of social awkwardness. Have considered reading relevant synopses or watching video clips, but they often don’t match what’s being brought up in conversation–either the joke was too specific, or I’d already forgotten about the clip altogether.)
- Manually boot Arch Linux onto my laptop. (I gave it a shot in 2023, and it took me six hours to figure out enough to get to the last step…only to not have it run properly once the customizations were complete. I’m running Manjaro for now.)
- Make Hong Kong egg tarts with the flaky, melt-in-your-mouth crust. (I could successfully create the pastry and pudding parts, and bake them separately; but for some reason, it doesn’t turn out the way it should when I bake the pudding in the tart crust. Hence no egg tarts–just crust and pudding so far.)
Things I do know how to do…
- Pull human teeth (not my own)
- Take cold showers (12+ minutes) without freezing
- Run/hike around a lake barefoot
- Sleep well on hard surfaces
- Write, edit, and publish a novel
- Develop a comfortable singing range of 3.5 octaves (and counting)
- Ask for higher pay, and get it (within a freelancing context)