I’m going to bore you again tonight with another update on my audiobook exertions. Today’s session was okay, but yesterday’s was remarkable. I talked about it on Basefook, but I feel like expanding on the subject here, and I’m between books to review.

What happened yesterday was that I was working on Chapter 3 of Troll Valley. Since I’m sure you’re familiar with that classic work of the imagination, you’ll surely remember how Miss Margit, the fairy godmother, tells Chris the story of The Twelve Wild Ducks.

What I realized as I was reading was that I was having a good time. It was fun.

I don’t have a lot of fun anymore (never did, to be honest). But one of the things I’ve always enjoyed most – and gotten least opportunity to do – is acting. The peculiar convolutions of my psychology have made me one of those natural actors who are naturally shy (there are more of them than you may think. Henry Fonda was terribly shy. Audrey Hepburn was too, and Meryl Streep is, according to a quick internet search). Some of them had (or have) stage fright too, something I have mercifully been spared.

But still, audiobooks may be just the medium for me. I can do them all by myself, and act my little heart out. The Twelve Wild Ducks gave me an opportunity to do both my Scandinavian accent (which is pretty good, I think) and my English accent (passable, at least in small portions).

Anyway, I had a ball yesterday.

And I thought about how I’ve wrestled with this project. Dealing with my crippling fear of the recording software. Working at it doggedly, a little each day, as much as my insecurities permitted. Incremental progress. How long have I been at this?

And now I’m starting to have fun. I took a risk, and now I’ve received a small reward.

Jordan Peterson talks frequently about taking small steps. If you can’t clean your room, clean a drawer. If you can’t do that, dust a shelf. Begin small and escalate. Supposedly, as you do more and more each day, some gland will excrete little shots of dopamine into your system, making you feel happy.

Frankly, this has never been my experience. There was a period in my life when I worked hard at trying to be more social. Smile (very hard for me). Speak to strangers (harder still). I was seeing a counselor at the time, and he cheered my efforts on. I’m pretty sure that helped. But then I moved away, and lost that support. I continued trying to be outgoing in my new environment, but gradually I ran out of gas. The little dopamine shots that were supposed to reward my efforts failed to show up. My emotional bank ran out of funds and I reverted to shyness.

And then there was music. As a kid I took 6 years of piano lessons. I never really got better. I hit a sort of glass ceiling. Later in life I spent about 3 years trying to learn guitar. Smack up against the same ceiling. Steady, incremental work, but no progress. No payoff. I assumed I must have a dopamine blockage.

But at last I’ve achieved a thing. In my seventh decade, I’ve learned a life lesson.

I always was a late bloomer.

I may be ready to marry by the time I’m in my 80s.