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Eric Gitonga
Eric Gitonga

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The Eternal Self Constraining Pseudo Student

Has this good thing turned into a self imposed prison?

Should I read more? More manuals? More books? Should I watch more? More tutorials? More lessons? Should I listen more? More podcasts? Or should I just dive in and do? Iron out the kinks as I go along? Pick up material as and when it is needed? Am I hiding behind a fear of the unknown, using this “need to learn more” as a scapegoat?

Today, when pushed against the wall, I realized that this, indeed, might just be the case. RawTherapee is the software I am now using to edit photographs. Having gotten so used to Lightroom, this new software is a beast to get to grips with. Everything really is, the first time round. And the lure of the familiar triples that percieved difficulty. The event that forced me to learn about features of RawTherapee that I need for my day to day editing was a godsent. It forced me to look through the software to figure out how to carry out certain editing operations that I have been otherwise lax to learn.

Beyond this, what else I’m I putting off doing because the difficulty of actually learning it is so uncomfortable I would rather spend hours reading/watching/listening to learning media? It is now time to take stock. Time to work on that personal photography project. Time to start building. Time to bring out the drawing/painting material and create. Time to join an open source project and contribute. Time to put away the literature/videos/podcasts (other than for use as reference when stuck) and just do.

Sketch from photograph Libre by Tony Rojas on Unsplash

RawTherapee

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