\r\nThis was written December 27th, 2025<\/i>\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\nShortTaught\u2122<\/h2>\r\n
\r\nAh, learning skills, what a chore that can be, right? If only we could just magically\r\nlearn a new craft, get over the boring part. Let’s just cut right through the tribulations\r\nand challenges, and just be naturally gifted at it! Well, that’s exactly what Arthur\r\nwishes for. Let us see how it affected him as he enters…the Area of Dusk.<\/b><\/i>\r\n<\/p>
\r\nAs Arthur was sitting patiently in his study, pondering upon what he might do today, a\r\nnoise suddenly resonated through his home.
\r\nDING-DONG!
\r\n“Ooohhh, has the package arrived at last! Great, great, great!”
\r\nThereafter, he ran down the steps to the front-door of his home. As expected, his package\r\nhad arrived. He could wait no longer and opened the package. There was a simple blue box,\r\nwith the logo of the company, MiRage. Inside this box, he found simple enough looking\r\ndevice, a small headset with a wire.
\r\n“Hmmm, where are the instructions? Ah, there they are. Simply connect the device to your\r\ncomputer, install our software and either upload one of the default skills or download\r\none of the premium skills from the internet. Simple enough, let’s get to it!”
\r\nWithout any hesitation, he headed back to his office, put the device on his head, connected\r\nit and then checked out his options after accepting the Terms and Conditions.\r\n<\/p>
\r\n“Ok, what should I get started with, what options do I have? Ok, let’s go for riding a\r\nbike, I definitely procrastinated on this one way too much.”
\r\nThereupon he clicked the upload button. A transfer bar appeared, and he waited while\r\nthe process was going through. A simple message appeared: ‘Please, do not disconnect\r\nthe device during transfer!’<\/i>.
\r\nHe waited, but didn’t feel anything particularly remarkable. It didn’t feel like anything\r\nspecial was happening, which was almost disappointing. He’d expected to see a lot of images\r\nflashing through his brain or something, but nothing of the sort. It was a bit boring actually.\r\nStill, within minutes the process was completed. And he was starting to suspect this\r\nmight have been a scam, considering he didn’t feel like anything had changed.
\r\nImmediately upon completion, he had to confirm whether he’d been scammed. He headed out\r\nand found an unlocked bike around and immediately got on it and tried ride it. And what\r\ndo you know, he immediately was off, no issues, as if he’d done it his entire life,\r\ndespite this being his first time.
\r\n“Woohoo!”, he exclaimed, “This is awesome!”.
\r\nAnd then, a car honked at him, to get out of the way. “Fuck!”.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nHe then headed back home to see the other “courses” available on his ShortTaught\u2122.\r\nHe obviously opted to install the whole suite of skills available, including some things\r\nhe was already familiar with, but he figured it couldn’t hurt. The whole process took\r\nmaybe an hour, but he got to learn a few different things such as swimming, meditation,\r\nand basic painting.
\r\n“Finally, I’ll be able to paint! Creative work, here I come!”
\r\nAnd obviously, he couldn’t wait to try his hand at it, so he immediately ordered everything\r\nhe figured he needed, same-day delivery. Isn’t the modern world convenient?
\r\nWhen at last it arrived, he prepared and set everything up, and got ready to paint. Yet,\r\nhere was the rub, he didn’t have any inspiration. Still, he wanted to test out his new-found\r\nskills. And so, he went for the classic fruit bowl. The results were unexpectedly good,\r\nalbeit rather messy. By the end of it, there was paint all around. Still, he was thoroughly\r\nimpressed, and opted to look for more such skills.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nOver the next few days, he started browsing through more and more of the premium skills,\r\nand buying a bunch related to art: Drawing, Color Composition, Calligraphy, etc…\r\nHis dream had always been to draw his own Manga, and so as soon as he’d managed to\r\ntransfer all the necessary skills, and obtained the remaining material he needed, he got\r\nto work, and tried to draw his first panel. He didn’t have much inspiration, yet still\r\nwent for it. Eventually, after a week of assiduous work, he had a first chapter ready.
\r\nHe was actually very excited, and decided to present it to one of his friends.\r\n“Oh my God, look what I’ve managed to write! Can you believe it? This ShortTaught\u2122 is a\r\nGod sent! It allowed a nobody like me to write my first manga so easily!”
\r\n“Hmm, hmm hmm, hnnnn, huh!”, his friend uttered while browsing through the manga.
\r\n“Well, the images definitely are quite good and impressive…but…it feels so uninspired!\r\nThe story is bland, and the images have no style of there own. And let’s not even talk\r\nabout the composition! Visually, it looks almost to be industry-level…but there’s no\r\nuniqueness, no voice, it’s just…corporate?”
\r\n“Hmphh, clearly you’re just jealous!”, said Arthur, before leaving in a huff.
\r\nA few weeks later, he could be seen in at his desk, the room littered with crumpled sheets,\r\na bunch of sketches he’d discarded.
\r\n“He was right, it’s all shit. It’s impressive, but no one would actually want to read\r\nthis! It’s just so uninspired! I’m done, I give up on creative work. It’s too much work!”\r\n<\/p>
\r\nEventually, he opted for a more straightforward path: languages. Why\r\nnot try to understand as many people as he could? And so he opted for a combination of\r\nchallenging and popular, Mandarin. Equipped with this new skill, he decided to go travel\r\nthrough China for a bit. Ah, the convenience of speaking the language, with none of the\r\neffort. And yet, there was a rub. Knowing a language and understanding culture and customs\r\nare quite distinct things. Confusion was still all abound, and it frustrated him to\r\nno-end.
\r\n“Wasn’t this supposed to be a miracle solution? Why can’t I just perfectly understand\r\nidioms? And what’s with those weird dishes with names that I can understand, yet make\r\nno sense whatsoever? Ugh, this still requires so much work, that’s not what I was\r\npromised!”
\r\nAnd thus, Arthur once more gave up and opted to move on to something different.\r\n<\/p>
\r\n“Ok, I’ve tried something creative, and it failed because I learned the skills, but didn’t\r\nget the inspiration. I tired language, but it failed because of the cultural barrier. What’s\r\nleft? Maybe I should go for something purely practical. There we go, electrical engineering,\r\nthat sounds perfect!”
\r\nAnd thus, he uploaded electrical engineering knowledge to his brain. And opted to repair\r\na few items around his house. It all worked great, finally, and he was happy. But then,\r\nhe got curious for special projects. He’d heard there were amazing things you could do\r\nwith a microwave’s transformer, and opted to disassemble it. Alas, despite his newly\r\nacquired knowledge, or maybe because of the false sense of confidence it gave him, he\r\ndid not take into that the capacitor kept its charge after being unplugged, and thus\r\nends Arthur’s tale.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nArthur’s tale is one of intellectual greed and misguided want for convenience. Not taking\r\nhis time, he missed out on one of the most beautiful part of learning, through seeing the\r\nworld around you gradually change as you get a different perspective on the world around\r\nyou. He also missed finding his own voice, through sheer impatience. And most important\r\nof all, he missed out on the most important teacher, experience, which dictates how\r\nbest to use knowledge and skills.
\r\nDon’t forget that convenience comes at a cost, and be wary what you wish for in…the\r\nArea of Dusk.<\/b><\/i>\r\n<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This was written December 27th, 2025 ShortTaught\u2122 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. … Continue reading Writing Challenge 2025 \u2013 30 – ShortTaught\u2122<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"index","bgseo_robots_follow":"follow","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2622"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2682,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622\/revisions\/2682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}