This was written December 27th, 2025
ShortTaught™
Ah, learning skills, what a chore that can be, right? If only we could just magically learn a new craft, get over the boring part. Let’s just cut right through the tribulations and challenges, and just be naturally gifted at it! Well, that’s exactly what Arthur wishes for. Let us see how it affected him as he enters…the Area of Dusk.
As Arthur was sitting patiently in his study, pondering upon what he might do today, a
noise suddenly resonated through his home.
DING-DONG!
“Ooohhh, has the package arrived at last! Great, great, great!”
Thereafter, he ran down the steps to the front-door of his home. As expected, his package
had arrived. He could wait no longer and opened the package. There was a simple blue box,
with the logo of the company, MiRage. Inside this box, he found simple enough looking
device, a small headset with a wire.
“Hmmm, where are the instructions? Ah, there they are. Simply connect the device to your
computer, install our software and either upload one of the default skills or download
one of the premium skills from the internet. Simple enough, let’s get to it!”
Without any hesitation, he headed back to his office, put the device on his head, connected
it and then checked out his options after accepting the Terms and Conditions.
“Ok, what should I get started with, what options do I have? Ok, let’s go for riding a
bike, I definitely procrastinated on this one way too much.”
Thereupon he clicked the upload button. A transfer bar appeared, and he waited while
the process was going through. A simple message appeared: ‘Please, do not disconnect
the device during transfer!’.
He waited, but didn’t feel anything particularly remarkable. It didn’t feel like anything
special was happening, which was almost disappointing. He’d expected to see a lot of images
flashing through his brain or something, but nothing of the sort. It was a bit boring actually.
Still, within minutes the process was completed. And he was starting to suspect this
might have been a scam, considering he didn’t feel like anything had changed.
Immediately upon completion, he had to confirm whether he’d been scammed. He headed out
and found an unlocked bike around and immediately got on it and tried ride it. And what
do you know, he immediately was off, no issues, as if he’d done it his entire life,
despite this being his first time.
“Woohoo!”, he exclaimed, “This is awesome!”.
And then, a car honked at him, to get out of the way. “Fuck!”.
He then headed back home to see the other “courses” available on his ShortTaught™.
He obviously opted to install the whole suite of skills available, including some things
he was already familiar with, but he figured it couldn’t hurt. The whole process took
maybe an hour, but he got to learn a few different things such as swimming, meditation,
and basic painting.
“Finally, I’ll be able to paint! Creative work, here I come!”
And obviously, he couldn’t wait to try his hand at it, so he immediately ordered everything
he figured he needed, same-day delivery. Isn’t the modern world convenient?
When at last it arrived, he prepared and set everything up, and got ready to paint. Yet,
here was the rub, he didn’t have any inspiration. Still, he wanted to test out his new-found
skills. And so, he went for the classic fruit bowl. The results were unexpectedly good,
albeit rather messy. By the end of it, there was paint all around. Still, he was thoroughly
impressed, and opted to look for more such skills.
Over the next few days, he started browsing through more and more of the premium skills,
and buying a bunch related to art: Drawing, Color Composition, Calligraphy, etc…
His dream had always been to draw his own Manga, and so as soon as he’d managed to
transfer all the necessary skills, and obtained the remaining material he needed, he got
to work, and tried to draw his first panel. He didn’t have much inspiration, yet still
went for it. Eventually, after a week of assiduous work, he had a first chapter ready.
He was actually very excited, and decided to present it to one of his friends.
“Oh my God, look what I’ve managed to write! Can you believe it? This ShortTaught™ is a
God sent! It allowed a nobody like me to write my first manga so easily!”
“Hmm, hmm hmm, hnnnn, huh!”, his friend uttered while browsing through the manga.
“Well, the images definitely are quite good and impressive…but…it feels so uninspired!
The story is bland, and the images have no style of there own. And let’s not even talk
about the composition! Visually, it looks almost to be industry-level…but there’s no
uniqueness, no voice, it’s just…corporate?”
“Hmphh, clearly you’re just jealous!”, said Arthur, before leaving in a huff.
A few weeks later, he could be seen in at his desk, the room littered with crumpled sheets,
a bunch of sketches he’d discarded.
“He was right, it’s all shit. It’s impressive, but no one would actually want to read
this! It’s just so uninspired! I’m done, I give up on creative work. It’s too much work!”
Eventually, he opted for a more straightforward path: languages. Why
not try to understand as many people as he could? And so he opted for a combination of
challenging and popular, Mandarin. Equipped with this new skill, he decided to go travel
through China for a bit. Ah, the convenience of speaking the language, with none of the
effort. And yet, there was a rub. Knowing a language and understanding culture and customs
are quite distinct things. Confusion was still all abound, and it frustrated him to
no-end.
“Wasn’t this supposed to be a miracle solution? Why can’t I just perfectly understand
idioms? And what’s with those weird dishes with names that I can understand, yet make
no sense whatsoever? Ugh, this still requires so much work, that’s not what I was
promised!”
And thus, Arthur once more gave up and opted to move on to something different.
“Ok, I’ve tried something creative, and it failed because I learned the skills, but didn’t
get the inspiration. I tired language, but it failed because of the cultural barrier. What’s
left? Maybe I should go for something purely practical. There we go, electrical engineering,
that sounds perfect!”
And thus, he uploaded electrical engineering knowledge to his brain. And opted to repair
a few items around his house. It all worked great, finally, and he was happy. But then,
he got curious for special projects. He’d heard there were amazing things you could do
with a microwave’s transformer, and opted to disassemble it. Alas, despite his newly
acquired knowledge, or maybe because of the false sense of confidence it gave him, he
did not take into that the capacitor kept its charge after being unplugged, and thus
ends Arthur’s tale.
Arthur’s tale is one of intellectual greed and misguided want for convenience. Not taking
his time, he missed out on one of the most beautiful part of learning, through seeing the
world around you gradually change as you get a different perspective on the world around
you. He also missed finding his own voice, through sheer impatience. And most important
of all, he missed out on the most important teacher, experience, which dictates how
best to use knowledge and skills.
Don’t forget that convenience comes at a cost, and be wary what you wish for in…the
Area of Dusk.