What's Your Thing?
Everybody Has A Thing
What’s your thing?
Somewhere down on the trail straight-away as I was coming off Snowy Mountain in the Adirondacks, there was a young man standing in the the middle of the trail looking up into the trees.
“Hi,” I said. “See something?”
“Heard something,” he said.
And for the next ten minutes, he regaled me with information about bird calls. We listened as he pointed out the calls of sparrows and chickadees and even a raven! What a fascinating display of having a thing.
A master class in an rare point of knowledge and I went away having learned a lot about something I never knew could be so interesting.
This wasn’t his job. And it went well beyond a hobby. It was his thing.
Did you ever just wish a stranger would randomly ask you about something that for some ridiculous reason you know an insane amount of information about? And if they asked you why you know so much about that weird, obscure whatever it is, you’d just shrug and say, “It’s my thing.”
Like, I sometimes imagine myself in line at the super market and somebody just casually mentioning World War 2 at the summit of Mount Washington or the history of my library or Japanese metal and oh my God, Lovebites is touring on the west coast this fall and they should come to New England because I really want Little Bean to see their new bass player, Fami, who is amazing… and, well, you get the idea.
So, I think you know where this is going. I want to know what your thing is. I want you to amaze me with your overwhelming knowledge of that strange obscure thing that nobody ever asks you about but you’d be so happy if somebody did.
And then I want you to share this post to other people who have things and bring them into the conversation. Let’s gather a spreadsheet of the oddest, most unusual tid-bits of knowledge.
So, tell us… what’s your thing?
Two of "my things" are also my job so it doesn't meet your criteria. I love teaching about kites and skiing (and other things). So I thought a lot about THE thing I know or can do that would be nice to share with others. I've decided that is navigating on land. One of my associates said I am like a turtle because I know where I am going or can figure out which way to go, often without needing a map.
I would happily share the river rule, finding North (or any direction) using the sun and a watch, methods of retracing steps and more to help one not get lost and how to find your way if you do feel lost. A common statement when someone asks me "are we lost?" is: "we're not lost, we're just choosing a different route"
Stone work, rocks in general...how they are formed, why are some round and others not? Different plies of rocks in NH mean different things etc etc etc. I look for stones when I hike and I think I have an idea how they got where they are...it's my thing I guess.