This blog post is cutting it really close in looking like a self-help piece. I’m not Tony Robbins who tells people how to accomplish their goals or Robert Kiyosaki who rebukes their fathers for staying poor. While I don’t have the business acumen to tell you how to multiply your money or the wisdom to show how to find inner peace, I do have some ideas on a system for living a more well-rounded life by focusing on a set of skills that best fit every aspect of your being.
This is meant to be a guide about working towards being a more well-rounded human being, as well as a call to action for a better and more diversified way of responding to life challenges. Every person has their own competencies, so they could be good at one thing that can then be their specialty. But we’re human beings, not robots. As the Ghost in the Shell quote goes, “It’s simple — overspecialize, and you breed in weakness. It’s slow death.”
Of course, you live your life as you choose. However, if you’re in a search for answers, perhaps this can be of some help in giving you some ideas on what you can do to diversify your skills, and therefore diversify your life, while also not spreading yourself too thin.
NOTE: This is a work in progress. I’m still figuring out what this is really about, even after years of pondering on this idea of a personal system for skills and talents. It looks like I played too many role-playing games growing up, which I admit is where most of this comes from.
Also, please take note that I, the author, am a middle-class doofus in my late 30s, yet I somehow thought I could come up with a system for living a more fulfilling life. You may dismiss this piece for whatever reason, including the quality of its writer.
What Are Skill Pillars?
Each pillar represents an aspect of oneself that represents particular skills. This is not a strict definition, but merely a way to categorize skills and talents in a somewhat metaphorical sense.
By understanding what aspect of oneself can focus on what skills, you may be able to figure out how to divide yourself between different interests, hobbies, and/or vocations and better understand how to juggle multiple things, create a work-life balance, and be a more well-rounded human being.
We have five pillars — Mind, Heart, Body, Soul, and Spirit.
Each one has its particular strengths, making it good for certain skills. However, this system is not just for maximizing each pillar, but finding which one best fits the individual and which ones can complement it.
Technical: The Mind Pillar
The symbol is colored blue to represent brilliance and wisdom, as well as confidence and a calm mind. It can also represent blue collar work, which is also technical and necessary.
This is usually the first category one encounters in modern civilization courtesy of mandatory education and rote learning. A technical skill in this context involves fields of knowledge and expertise built upon empiricism and epistemology. Fields like science, engineering, technology, medicine, and law are in this category. They’re skills you usually go to school for.
The Technical Moves You Forward
Whatever skill that can be assessed with rigor and objective measure is what can be considered a technical skill. Getting good at it involves study and experience, and you too can be proficient in that if you put in the time and effort required. It can then lead to a professional career, making this category the most viable one for having a livelihood.
Also, take note that a lot of technical skills require physicality, so this category is not limited to office jobs, white collar work, and skills that can be done by brains in jars.
As more work gets more and more specialized due to compartmentalization, spurred on by the corporate need to keep labor costs down, it may seem like narrowing one’s scope is the way to go. However, the opposite may be even more true since these companies have been getting more and more trigger-happy with layoffs. Job security is now a thing of the past.
Not Everyone Can Be Technical
While it’s possible for everyone to become proficient with technical skills, not everyone takes a liking to learning and practicing them. Studying and practicing them involves a lot of rigor and tedium, which many find boring and mind-numbing. They also often have little to no room for creativity and self-expression. Despite that, you have to do what you have to do.
But since technical skills are the most practical and valued, it can still serve you well to be proficient in one, even if you won’t do it for a living. Whether it’s fixing machines and electronics, knowing how to do first aid, understanding law and finance, or being proficient with computers, it’s always a good thing to have a technical skill in your arsenal.
On the other hand, there’s an ongoing battle between technical people and those who provide those technical things. The latter are continuing to stifle the former by limiting their functionality and accessibility. Having less control over what you use in your daily life can make you either more dependent on whoever makes them or make you abandon them altogether.
Soon enough, with enough limitations, it can yield a learned helplessness that makes people more dependent on the providers, thus letting them have more control.
Being technical is becoming more and more of a fight against the powers that be. However, it’s also what can let you make a living and take more control of the world around you. Therefore, it’s crucial that you can wrest that control back on your side. Perhaps that sounds rather tiring and overbearing for some, but being technically proficient eases much of that burden.
Trades Go Beyond Technical
Trades are technical, and they can also be physical. Some of them, like woodworking and metalworking, can even open up to the creative upon reaching a high enough threshold of knowledge and experience. But even if you know only the basics, working a trade can go a long way in providing service to others, which can even lead to a livelihood.
The following statement may age poorly, but I can confidently say right now that we will go back to valuing trades as they are much less susceptible to the encroachment of artificial intelligence.
Computer programs may automate bureaucratic procedures and even some creative processes. However, you cannot tell me with utmost certainty that there will be robots that can perform and adapt in all areas better than a skilled welder who can bind metal with intricate weaving patterns better than even the gods of mythology.
Such technology will require billions to develop, while a man can take years to reach such proficiency through experience and institutional knowledge.
While the great forces of the universe were able to create the very rock we stand on, it is the power of human industry that can turn rubble into steel sheets and the skilled hand and eye of a welder that can put those sheets together into something beautiful and useful.
Once a robot is able to do the same, then perhaps we are all indeed doomed. Then again, pursuing that technology is in itself a technical endeavor for humankind.
Being Not Technical is Like Being Crippled
This is where I reveal some of my biases. Every now and then, I’ve had to deal with people who have no technical aptitude, either from having grown up without developing literacy for it or merely beset by anxiety and self-doubt. In either case, lack of technical understanding leads one to being dependent on others for even the simplest of tasks.
My mother panics when she accidentally presses ‘mute’ on her television. It still never occurs to her that if she pressed the button again, that unmutes the sound.
I’ve seen people make mountains out of molehills simply because they don’t understand how to operate a simple implement or sort out a basic procedure. Whether it’s technology, economy, legality, or bureaucracy, having technical understanding allows you to navigate through tedium and see the silver lining in what’s usually seen as dark clouds.
Being not technical makes you more unreasonable and more anxious, especially when your life and vocation both require technological aid.
Mind you, much of having technical aptitude can depend on having a childhood that allowed you to tinker with such things. It still boggles my mind that I tend to be the most proficient person with audio equipment in many settings simply because I grew up playing around with my brother’s stereos. I imagine the same can happen with other fields of interest.
Technical undertakings brought humanity out of the cave by giving them capability and agency.
Creative: The Heart Pillar
The symbol is red to represent passion and intense emotion, as well as the blood that’s pumped by the heart and flows through one’s veins. Red attracts attention, like how a piece of art should.
The arts and humanities reside in this category. It includes skills that require prodigious use of creativity and artistry, and it also involves imagination and abstract thinking. Most creative skills involve making things that stimulate, entertain, compel, and/or communicate. Whether it’s art for art’s sake or an advertisement for selling a product, they all involve creativity.
The Creative Helps You Learn How to Learn
Getting good at a creative skill may not be as cut and dry as attaining proficiency in a technical skill. There’s less of a syllabus for learning that stuff because creativity depends a lot more on the individual, so it can take a lifetime to get good at it. Learning those skills as an adult is going to be a more process-oriented endeavor, where you work towards every bit of improvement.
As for prodigies who become good at it early, they were able to get into it as a child, actually like doing it, and be given encouragement (or coercion) and a conducive environment for practicing it (whether positive or negative). Of course, depending on how they were pushed to pursue it, they may retain that affinity or they grow out of it and do something else later in life.
Creative Livelihood is Not Easy
It’s possible to earn a living with creative skills, but they require talent and skill that not everyone can attain. Technology looked into divorcing talent and skill from the process by automating it with AI. However, as of this writing, we may be experiencing the popping of the AI bubble. People now react negatively to AI-generated art as it implies theft — AI applications like Midjourney get training data from the works of human artists.
While technology has made us doubt the integrity of human creativity for a while, the obvious became apparent soon enough. Even purely result-oriented people who had been optimistic about this technology should be made aware of how much it infringes on a process that draws from one’s inspiration and personal journey to create distillations of the human experience.
The Creative is Irrational, But Also Nourishing
However, it doesn’t even have to be that high-minded at all. For most people, it provides a way to express oneself through various media. You may like drawing, writing, sewing, or making simple sculptures. For some, it’s their vocation and livelihood. But for most people, it can simply be a hobby they can engage in to take a break from the stresses of life. It need not be put out for public consumption — it can be a diary entry that’s honest and pure.
According to American artist Sol LeWitt in his Sentences on Conceptual Art, “Rational judgements repeat rational judgements; irrational judgements lead to new experience. Irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically.” That seems like an oxymoron, but it’s what separates art from science — art seldom follows the rational path; it necessitates risk and going by the seat of your pants. That’s why art takes heart.
Creativity is the heart pillar because while following the mind is seen as the logical and rational way to lead one’s life, the heart is what sustains life. Even the most cynical people out there who spit on art as a vocation consume creative media, whether they’re shows on Netflix, video games, books, movies, or so on. Maybe they don’t think there’s money in the creative side of things, but they certainly spend money on them.
Creativity and philosophy give birth to what art then brings to shape.
Physical: The Body Pillar
The symbol is colored yellow orange to represent warmth, vitality, and excitement. It’s the color of sunshine, which promotes energy and life, which can be felt throughout one’s body.
The mind resides in the body, while the body is controlled by the mind. For both the able-bodied and the less able, the use of one’s body in everyday life is not to be taken for granted. As the saying goes, “A healthy person has a thousand wishes, a sick person just one.” If you have ever been severely ill before, you know how that feels.
Therefore, even if your livelihood doesn’t involve manual labor, it’s still a good idea to maintain a strong and healthy body. Despite what a lot of people who somehow disdain physical activity, moving around is a good idea. As Mark Bell of Super Training would often say, “Strength is never a weakness; weakness is never a strength.”
Physical Fitness is Non-Negotiable
If the habit of exercise is cultivated from youth, there’s less to worry about. However, if it has been long absent well into adulthood, the challenge to attain the habit is steep. The longer a sedentary person procrastinates from consistent physical activity into their life, the more cumulative damage is amassed in the body. If you don’t use it, you will lose it.
Many would study the science of physical training and become knowledgeable enough to understand its importance and intricacies. However, it’s not uncommon for them to go through cycles of getting on the wagon, then falling off due to life circumstances. They’d talk about how they were able to attain their goals, only to taper off and lose progress.
But no worries, they’ll soon get back on. Promise.
It’s likely because they don’t enjoy physical exercise — few ever do. There’s no shame in not doing pushups at every opportunity, even if the only requirements are a (hopefully clean) floor and 30 seconds of effort. Perhaps instead of beating yourself up for not doing those pushups, you should get into something that will motivate you to do those pushups.
Exercise for the Sake of Exercise is Not a Good Strategy
Get into something physical that will make you want to get better at it. Whether it’s martial arts, CrossFit (or don’t, because Greg Glassman is a twat), triathlons, pickleball, pick-up basketball, or so on. If that physical thing makes you study how to make your body better, then that’s exactly what you need. It will make you want to exercise; forcing yourself to exercise is futile.
Then there are supplements and performance-enhancing substances. Most people would love to be able to maintain their health and fitness just by taking a pill. Most supplements end up getting excreted out the body anyway, while steroids and other performance enhancers tend to have side effects and other physical costs for their temporary benefits. If it were that easy, everyone would be doing it and that would make it not worth doing in the first place.
Having a Good Body is Always a Good Idea
Whether you’re looking to not “grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable,” as Socrates referred to, or simply stay healthy enough to live your life as you please for as long as possible, paying attention to one’s body is paramount. You may not think much of it until either your body starts faltering or you suddenly lose a body part.
The body brings to reality the abstractions of the mind, the yearnings of the heart, and the promise of the soul.
Performative/Competitive: The Spirit Pillar
The symbol is green because that color represents hope and positivity. It’s the color of nature, which also promotes growth and change, which are what the spirit is all about.
The spirit yearns to let the whole universe acknowledge its existence and applaud its prowess. You may be either a performer who likes entertaining a crowd or a competitor who enjoys going up against other individuals on an even playing field. Both avenues have that goal of achieving something very few people can reach for — the admiration of an audience.
The Pull of Performing for an Audience
While it’s not necessarily only for cheers and applause, as some may engage in a performance or competitive field for the sole purpose of mastery, there’s no avoiding the need for the energy of an audience in a performance or competition. Without the crowd, performances are empty and competitions are almost meaningless. Adulation and applause are the climax.
This is the one pillar that doesn’t need to be there for the structure to be stable. You can have all the other pillars in place and the whole thing will still stand strong, but having this pillar up can complete the whole thing. That’s why I drew this pillar as a hollow one, not because it’s neither important nor substantial, but because it’s optional for most.
If you’re a singer and/or musician, you always have that arrow in your quiver, even if you go on to do other things in your life. You can choose to either engage in music at your leisure or take it seriously and practice hard for most of your days. Perhaps you get to a level wherein you can earn money with your musical ability, either as a live performer or a recording artist.
Nowadays, we have musicians who make songs with a laptop and a piece of production software. Instruments are not even that necessary anymore, although being able to play one is still a great boon. The same lowered level of entry has also been afforded to many other performative fields, such as filmmaking, voice acting, dancing, and so on.
The Drive for Competition
On the other side of the coin, you have competitive fields. The first ones that come to mind are sports. As much as skeptics would point to sports as surrogate activities that are not necessary for survival, they can instill the importance of discipline, dedication, and work ethic that otherwise can’t be made immediately apparent in other fields.
The prospect of winning a prize and gaining recognition for one’s talent and prowess makes the drudgery of daily practice a lot less tedious. However, that also means it’s not limited to the realm of athletics. Esports has the same level of competitiveness, yet with an even faster turnaround — a month in conventional sports is more like a week in esports.
Athletes are considered past their prime when they start reaching their mid-30s, while esports competitors are considered ‘old’ when they reach their mid–20s. While traditional sports stay mostly the same, even if how they’re played can change over time, a video game can turn on a dime at the developer’s whim. That makes esports more volatile and frenetic.
Athletic sports demand more physicality and require greater life investment; esports demand more mental preparation and require greater short-term time investment. Meanwhile, even the more unusual sort of competitions like speed eating, slapfighting, and so on involve the same mental preparation to maximize performance.
Is Spirit Optional or Essential?
One of the most important things that performative or competitive endeavors teach us is how to deal with fear and anxiety. Everyone is actually scared, even the most talented and experienced performer or the strongest and most decorated competitor. Nervousness is the body’s way of preparing for a high-stakes activity, so you actually have to be wary if you don’t feel scared or anxious before getting out there.
It’s when people are too calm before the storm when they end up making the most mistakes.
We can also learn from it the importance of preparation. Whenever you see a performer entertain audiences with sold-out shows or competitors win championships, 90% of that success is in
Perhaps some people find the fuss and hassle of performance or competition to be not only non-essential, but actually detrimental for one’s well-being. They see performing as merely fishing for fame, while competition brings out one’s inner asshole without fail. They are not entirely wrong. If they don’t feel good about it, there’s no need to get into it.
However, there’s a reason why at every era in history, there has been theater and sport. Once humans figured out how to grow food and build shelter, they made art and
Meanwhile, I realized something that made spirit seem more essential than I first thought.
The Ultimate Arena for Performance and Competition
I had to add this at the last minute because it just came to me. This made me realize that spirit may not be as optional as I first thought.
Of course, the ultimate competition is one that can let you take over the world. Business is also competition, and capitalism is its arena. Meanwhile, marketing is the ultimate performance art. Making money elevates the spirit from being something you get into on the side to taking over as the most urgent and important thing in your life.
While I surmised that communication is the one skill that enhances all other skills, you can say that spirit through the prism of business and finance is the one skill pillar that can funnel all other skills. All other forms of competition help you learn how to deal with the competition of other businesses and improve your own.
Adding to that, being a performer who can put on a show and captivate a crowd definitely makes you a better marketer as you can grab attention almost as easily as breathing. While others struggle to come up with ways to make people notice them and their businesses, being a performer is like training for becoming a marketer.
So yeah, spirit may not be completely optional, after all. Perhaps coloring my symbol for spirit as green was a coincidence, but I’ll take it. However, instead of keeping it hollow as I originally intended, I filled it in once I understood how important it actually is.
Spirit is the bright spark of one’s life, even if not everyone brings out theirs. Even for a moment, you can make yourself seen and heard through prowess and personality.
Communication: The Soul Pillar
The symbol is colored white to represent honesty and clarity. It’s also the combination of all other colors, which is apt for communication as the skill that adds to all other skills.
This is the pillar that transcends all other pillars. Communication is the one skill that can boost all other skills. Becoming a better communicator can help you not only become more skillful, but also a better human being. Being bad at communication can make you worse at your other skills, as well as expressing your thoughts and emotions, which then worsens your quality of life.
That’s why I consider it the soul. Communication is how you truly make your mark.
It’s the one area I need the most help with, especially after what I had to go through before the writing of this very sentence. My inadequate communication skills, mistreated throughout my upbringing and neglected in my early adulthood, gets me regularly shampooed with no conditioner and styled upon without mercy. It’s a problem that can no longer be ignored.
I wrote that paragraph over a year before I finished this post. A lot has happened since then.
When I first thought of this concept, I put the soul pillar in the center. While I’ve since changed it, you can still think of it as the most structurally crucial pillar. It certainly is the most important pillar of all. The reason why our civilization is descending into a loneliness crisis is perhaps due to the increasing lack of this pillar for an alarming number of people.
Oral and Written Communication
There are both oral and written communication, each being its own specialty and can be used in their own way. Being both a good speaker and a good writer at the same time is a rarity, I’ve found. However, one can lead to the other since being able to say words can foster the ability to use them, and vice versa. The love for language and letters can later grow a love for the spoken word, and the love for speaking can lead to a love for reading and writing.
Oral communication can be further categorized into conversation and public speaking, which can then be subcategorized into specific skills such as negotiation, debate, and so on. Talking isn’t just about relaying information, but also narrating stories and engaging with emotions. It’s not enough to be heard and understood for communication is a two-way street.
Input: Listening and Reading
Listening is just as important, if not more. If there’s no good input, there’s no good output. You want to make the other party in the conversation feel welcome and heard. You don’t want to interject at every single contentious point and retort at every apparent slight. It’s best to let them finish, then you take your turn in response and add your own two cents.
But sometimes, you do have to interrupt to assert your rights or authority in certain situations — the key is in knowing when it’s appropriate to do so.
For writing, reading is the equivalent. How can you write a good story if you’ve never read a good story in the first place? How do you not write a bad story if you’ve never seen what a bad story looks like? Being able to tell stories isn’t just for works of fiction, but also fact. Whether it’s an anecdote or historical event, a stroke of luck or a scientific discovery, you’ll want to be able to tell others about it — that’s done through the prism of storytelling.
Communication and Storytelling Are Everyday Skills
From small talk at the water cooler to sending an email to a high-value client, these are the so-called ‘soft skills’ described in corporate environments. While they’re not the aforementioned technical skills that the mind is occupied with, those soft skills are actually specific communication skills that add to the psychological armor of professionalism, which should be one of your main weapons against stress and burnout.
You may have to justify a decision you made in life or a choice you pursued in a difficult endeavor. You have to show how it started, how it moved, and how it ended up the way it did. Your ability to weave that story and tell it in a way that makes the other party at least sympathize with you is not merely pragmatism, but an artform that anyone can take upon that also happens to be a practical skill. You should be able to tell a whole story without taking too long.
But if you’re not good at telling stories, yet still loquacious, people who listen to you dwindle. You think you’re being listened to, but they’re merely tolerating your ramblings out of politeness. They then find ways to never have to converse with you again if they could help it. There are those who think of themselves as raconteurs, but they’re actually either dullards or whiners.
And sometimes, you meet people who are both. They’re often tolerated, but rarely liked.
Then there are those who are amazing at telling tall tales. Facts rarely get in the way of their compelling stories, and it takes a long while for people to catch on to their sorcery. It takes a careful listener and a courageous speaker to confront such con artists. Maybe you can let them slide if they’re harmless — you allow yourself to be entertained while not believing their myths.
If they’re fooling and manipulating others, you must communicate your concerns and try to make them cease their fabrications.
Literature: Bearing Your Heart to Soothe the Soul
Writing for oneself is akin to prayer. You can express your hopes and dreams, your regrets and misgivings, and your sympathies for others and yourself. Most writers start writing to record their thoughts and feelings because they don’t have anywhere or anyone else to pour them to.
Perhaps you journal every day or you just write down whatever you’re feeling during difficult times. Some of you may progress to writing other things, including stories and essays. A few of those people may go on to write for a living and even get articles or even books published.
Even if you’re not a published author, it doesn’t make you any less of a writer. If writing is what you do, then you are a writer. No amount of elitism or gatekeeping will change that unless you stop writing because of the discouragement. A big part of writing is allowing yourself to write, so you should keep doing so if it truly enriches your life or at least gives you some solace.
If you ever have the urge to tell a story or compose a poem, you’re becoming a creative writer. The rest of it is whether you can do it well enough to gather any readership. If you can have someone read what you’ve written, whether it’s a few handful or a sizable audience, then you’re well on your way as a creative writer who can weave words into art.
However, it always starts with writing for yourself, and you should be able to do that even when you’re at the top or the bottom. Writing comes from within.
Maybe you don’t care for literature and the act of writing beyond its utility. If all you need it for is writing emails and the occasional promissory note, then that’s well within your right to not care. However, if you have even an ounce of appreciation for art in you, then you owe it to yourself to write more often. It could be in a notebook that’s locked away from the rest of the world or a blog that barely anyone visits.
Writing is an outlet that anyone (who has had at least basic education) can engage in. It can be as effective as prayer, if not more.
Public Speaking: Where Heart and Soul Meets Spirit
It’s one thing to converse with individuals and small groups of people. It’s a whole new world when it comes to speaking to a crowd. Perhaps you’re one of the very few in the world who has absolutely no fear of an audience, a group I used to belong to in my youth. I was psychologically shielded by ego and naivete, allowing me to be an irritating sod. However, over time, I softened and lost my nerve when it came to looking smart and magnificent.
Some would say I learned shame, while others would say I became a lot less annoying.
I do miss my former self who could stand in front of people and do whatever I want and not care for reactions and consequences. In its place is a more thoughtful person who thinks a lot more before he speaks. Upon acquiring a more well-adjusted manner, I then had to learn how to speak in public without the crutch of either blind arrogance or chemical assistance.
You don’t need to be Tony Robbins or a theater AC-TOR to need skills in public speaking and performance. Most think they can avoid it, but you can never know for sure. You may have to give a presentation and not want to flub it, defend your thesis and not mess up in front of the judges, or give a talk and not want to either look like a fool or put your audience to sleep.
If none of the above, it could just be an urgent need to speak up during a crisis situation. Your fight or flight response may go off, and you end up freezing at the moment. There are some out there who are so socially anxious that ordering food at the counter of a fast food restaurant is something they have to prepare themselves for. For those who think that’s pathetic, you’re not helping at all and you just seem mean.
Being able to communicate to a large group of people without stuttering or stumbling is a tremendous skill. It can turn losers into charismatic leaders, as history has shown us. Just remember that if you’re a gentle soul, you can’t just become a firebrand overnight unless you create an alter ego that can channel that energy through you. However, you need not be a hellfire and brimstone preacher to get your point across and captivate a crowd.
It’s better if you’re able to find your way to channel the energy you already have into your public speaking. You can amp up the qualities you wish to put forth, which can then mute those you don’t want to be as visible. It takes a while to find your public persona or your ‘broadcast voice’ — it’s a constant process of incremental improvement through trial and error.
You can dive into the deep end of the pool straight away by doing something like joining an open mic night, or you can take it slow and experiment by livestreaming or making video content. Some people I’ve known in the past took the path of radio broadcasting, and they turned into hosts that can comfortably talk for hours. I know a couple of people who host events for a living — something I myself don’t have the social battery for.
Another good reason to get good at talking to an audience is to effectively pass down your knowledge and experience.
Teaching: Storytelling for Sharing Knowledge and Experience
It’s where the mind meets the soul. Teaching ensures that human civilization can continue to progress by passing on knowledge and experience from generation to generation. I previously talked about the pipeline of information to wisdom through experience in this blog post while I was still figuring it out, and teaching is a major part of that process.
Perhaps one of the most important functions of communication in society at large, your ability to teach what you know to others makes you invaluable. By sharing your knowledge and insight by providing facts and telling stories about your experiences in your field of expertise, you can help people learn to enrich your community and boost everyone around you.
It’s also one of the best ways to learn something — studying it, then teaching it. The Feynman Technique, named after the theoretical physicist Richard Feynman, is a four-step process for learning any subject, no matter its difficulty or complexity. Instead of just memorizing stuff, you learn the substance of the topic through selection, research, writing, explaining, and refining.
If you can explain it in such a way that even a child can understand it, that means you truly have understood it.
Communication lets you to bear your soul and touch the souls of others.
The Goal is to Create YOUR System and Enjoy Being YOU
Of course, everyone’s circumstances in life are different. Fortunate souls like myself have room to breathe, while many others have more stressful lives due to tighter finances, greater life restrictions, and familial obligations. My aim with this piece is not to suggest that everyone should follow this system or their life will certainly be in shambles.
I’m putting this forth as merely a framework to help figure things out, especially if you happen to be scatter-brained and divided between many interests like myself.
Finding Your Thing
The thing about “finding your thing” is that there’s a good bit of luck involved. It has a lot to do with the circumstances of your upbringing, the environment you grow up in, the kind of people around you, the media you consume during your formative years, and so on.
On one hand, I lament only figuring out my affinity with writing at the age of 21, especially since I was raised in a culture that wrongly pressures its youth to hurriedly choose a vocation lest they end up being failures. Thankfully, at least I have something, even if I haven’t been able to maximize my potential in it for the past decade and a half.
On the other hand, I know quite a few friends who lament never having found their thing. I heard somewhere that if ever you don’t find your ‘true calling’ by the age of 25, you should just find the best paying job you can and stick with it, even if you don’t necessarily love it. You then learn to love that job however you can and follow other interests on the side.
Then there are prodigies and specialists who either found their calling early or were funneled into a profession from a young age and somehow didn’t fall off the wagon. They’re both fortunate and unfortunate at the same time — they never had to struggle learning that thing as an adult while also having that one thing occupy their entire lives.
Most would think of that as a good thing, but it can be a curse if you can’t do anything else.
You’re Never Too Old
I heard somewhere that when you hit the age of 25 and still haven’t found your true calling, you should switch to finding the best paying work you can find and pursue interests on the side.
While I have my reservations with that kind of advice, I see the need for setting such a hard line. Adults incur obligations and responsibilities that leave them unable to pursue interests at leisure. While 25 seems a bit too early, you certainly have to put your foot down by 30.
It’s not to say that you can’t make transitions and career changes past 30, but such decisions come with costs and sacrifices that won’t come easy. If you’re willing to make such a change and that thing you’re looking to move towards has such a strong pull, then you should go for it — further hesitation will only be a waste of time.
This is relevant to talking about this system because you’ll meet plenty of people that will tell you that you’d be stupid to pursue anything else as an adult. I myself am guilty of having given that advice to a couple of people, and I still feel guilty about giving my opinion without adequate knowledge and forethought. Please pardon my presumptuousness here.
We all have to be more careful about telling people how to live their lives. I hope I didn’t step on any toes in writing this short treatise.
My Personal Skill Pillars
If you’re actually interested in what Sonny Go is about, please read on. This may serve as a template for mapping out your own skill pillars. Otherwise, that’s it for this blog post. This is an ongoing project, so there may be future posts to amend or augment this idea.
Take note that while I’m a jack of many trades, my skill pillars are not necessarily the most profitable or prominent. If your standard for success is making lots of money or building a reputation that precedes you above all else, then you may want to specialize instead. But even then, you’d still want to have other outlets you can turn to in your spare time.
This is a system that works for determining how you operate, either as a generalist or a specialist, while still being a well-rounded human being.
Mind
My main technical skill is in computers and electronics. I’ve always been a tinkerer, so I can figure out how to tweak and repair just about anything I get my hands on as long as it doesn’t involve a soldering iron, although I’m working to remedy that as well. That aptitude also allows me to learn how other stuff works, whether it’s in hardware or software.
Heart
My main creative skills are in writing and multimedia arts, the latter of which I took up in college after being inspired by my artist friends. Even before, I had interest in creating my own visuals, but I didn’t know how to use more advanced tools like Adobe Photoshop. My first designs were made through pixel art with MS Paint. I would later learn graphic design and web design, which resulted in this website, although my skills are now fairly outdated and in need of refreshing.
Soul
Writing is not just a creative skill, but also a communication skill. While I’m not as good with my social skills since I’m a reclusive introvert, both my writing and my voice have exposed me to the outside world from time to time. That then would push me to get gradually better with my social skills, and that cycle has since kept me from being a hikikomori. While my neurodivergence does pose a challenge in improving my communication, it also gives me a different perspective that I often find advantageous.
Body
My chosen physical skill is in martial arts, even if I’m not that good at it. I do have an affinity for fight analysis, which also lends to my performative skill. I’ve been fascinated with how fighters solve problems and win fights since 2003 when I first got into boxing. I practice martial arts for physical fitness and better understanding of strategies and tactics in both combat sports and self-defense. It’s not that necessary for my survival, but I find it a fun and healthy diversion.
Spirit
My performative skill is in using my voice, especially for ring announcing and commentary. It’s the most recent addition to my system as it fell into my lap in late 2016. But even before that, I’ve been told that I have a voice fit for narration. For years, I had been ‘practicing’ my commentary, which was watching fights and pro wrestling matches on mute and commentating over them to amuse myself. I now make videos against my better judgment to put myself out there. I’m fortunate to have my peculiar set of interests coincide with a need for my services.
How My Writing Enhances All My Other Skills
Above all else, writing is my most important skill. It’s the one thing I’ve always worked on, even when I didn’t know about it. I can’t claim to be great at it — I’m far from being a master of letters — but writing is what I’ll always be doing for all of my life.
That’s why I keep this website up, despite having to pay for domain and hosting every year and not making money from it just to have a blog with my web design. I really should make a Substack site instead. In any case, as long as I can write and someone reads what I put out, even if it’s just one person, I’ll keep doing it.
My writing ties everything else together and is enhanced by them.
You’re reading my writing right now. It’s not just about being able to put words together and organize ideas, but also finding connections between different bodies of knowledge. It’s what I think about from when I get up from bed to when I go back to sleep.
While it doesn’t seem like writing has much to do with computers and electronics, reading does. Being a good writer means having to read all the time, and that’s what you have to do when you’re immersed in technology. Even then, you’ll have to write down notes.
Most of the time, the technically apt are reading guides, documentation, and message boards to find troubleshooting solutions, look for new projects, and learn how to do new things.
As for multimedia arts, especially graphic design and videography, my writing gives them substance. I do copywriting for graphics and scriptwriting for videos.
I also get to write about martial arts, especially my ongoing progress and how it connects with a lot of other things under the sun. Martial arts knowledge lets me connect the physical with the mental and emotional, especially during times of duress.
My writing also helps with my endeavors in pro wrestling, especially as an on-screen character. Every now and then, I have to speak in front of an audience, so I outline what I have to say. For my commentary, a role that helps with storytelling, I prepare notes for every single show. I’m still working on improving my speaking, and I manage by using my writing for outlines and scripts.
But even if my writing doesn’t do much else, it’s still what gives me a reason to keep existing. While I’ve since opted to not keep doing it for a living, especially now as I’m getting older, it’s still what I do and think about for most of my days.
Got Feedback?
Have something to say? Do you agree or am I off-base? Did I miss a crucial detail or get something completely wrong? Please leave whatever reactions, questions, or suggestions you may have in the comment section below.
You may also like/follow and leave a message on either Facebook or X/Twitter. Please subscribe to both the Avoider.net YouTube channel and my personal YouTube channel, as well as my Twitch channel for more content. I also post my thoughts on Threads and BlueSky.
Thank you for dropping by.
