keep on plodding

If you have never played Katamari, the rules are simple; Look around for things smaller than you, then roll over them to make yourself bigger.

When you begin, you are almost nothing. Everything is too big for you. You look around desperately for things that are smaller than you to absorb, and struggle slowly, painfully, to make yourself bigger. The thought of growing to the size of a universe seems beyond impossible.

Eventually though, something happens. You reach a sweet size, where you absorb just about everything. Sweet things like watermelons and ice cream stands, spiky things like road cones and cacti, you don't care, you suck it all in and just grow manically. Things to absorb are everywhere and as you grow bigger, things get bigger too.

Eventually, you reach an unimaginable size. You're rolling about, absorbing asteroids, comets, moons, planets! But, by this point, things to absorb are now hard to find. Only the biggest of the biggest will do, but there's nothing left. Growth is hard and slow going again.



The way our skills grow is exactly the same. We start out stupid, and know nothing. Walk into a martial arts hall, and you see skills that are too big for you - multiple flying kicks, concrete smashing, feats of strength with unusual body parts and so on. Walk into a dance hall and you see skills that are too big for you - walking on tiptoes, headspins, complete body popping and so on. Walk into uni and you'll see skills that are too big for you - quantum mechanics, corporate law, medical science and so on. If you try to absorb these huge skills as you are, you'll expend huge amounts of energy making slow gains, and if you eventually succeeded, all you have is just one skill.

The better way to absorb these big skills, is to grow bigger than they are. And to do that, you have to absorb lots of little ones. Some easy kicks, stances, flexibility. Some body tricks, footwork, musicality. Some study tricks, the meaning of causality. Little skills that slowly make you bigger. Ever so slowly, the skills you pick up need to get bigger as well. Ditch punch drills for live sparring. Ditch solo dance for dance offs and competitions. Ditch textbook reading for lab experience. Get bigger. Until that concrete smash is nothing to your Devil Sweep, Twin Pistons, Wuxi finger hold, and scores of other martial skills. Until that backflip is nothing to your air tracks, L-kicks, air chairs and scores of other dance moves. Until that course in Parallel Systems is nothing to your experience in Artificial Intelligence, Advanced Algorithms and Semiconductors. You'll have that one skill that seemed so big so long ago, and so many more, and things are so much easier than if you strove for that big skill directly.

In short, the easiest way to acquire big skills:

• Find skills you don't have that are just a little smaller than you, and pick them up.
• Getting bigger will be slow to start, then speed up to exciting speeds. Growth will eventually slow down, but by then you should be too big to care.
• Ultimately, nothing is too big for you.