How to not blow off your hobbies | #32

plz don't quit, you're missing out on so much joy, but also: i get it

Do you wish you had a hobby?

Most people I know have tried to pick one up. How about you?

Piano? Guitar? Singing? Drawing? Dancing? Juggling?

How'd that go? 😬

If you're like most people, you blew it off shortly after you picked it up. I've tried to pick up all the above at some point. I've tried drawing many times.

But there have been some I've stuck with. I got pretty good at juggling.

I'm okay at dancing salsa. (I've kept it up for ~4 months now. I even joined a dance team!)

And I've been learning to animate with After Effects for the past 7 months or so. No signs of burn out. I still find it fascinating.

All this to say: I think I have a useful perspective on

1. what makes people blow off hobbies (my experience with piano),

   1. two choices (and they both suck): tediousness and overwhelm

2. why pick up a hobby in the first place

3. what can help people stick with their hobbies

   1. solving the training wheels problem

   2. solving the taste problem

So that's what I'm covering in this 32nd edition of The Pole! Enjoy!

Not enough training wheels: my experience with piano

Back in December 2022, I got inspired to learn to play piano.

One of my best friends, an experienced piano player, was struggling to master a song called Kiss The Rain.

I teased him. "Dude, why are you so bad? That looks easy."

He smirked. "Oh yeah? Let's see you try it."

"Well obviously I can't, I've never played piano."

"Yeah, and I'll bet that even if you practiced for a year you still wouldn't master it."

"Pfffffft." I had never scoffed so hard in my life. "It's just pressing keys in a certain order. There is no way it's THAT hard."

"You'll see." He grinned.

That night, I started strategizing. Playing the song required me to know

1. how to translate a sheet music note to a letter note (e.g. C)

2. how to take a letter note and find the key on the piano that plays that note

To solve the first problem, I started teaching myself sheet music.

To solve the second problem, I learned to locate C and counted notes from there.

Great. For any note on the sheet music, I can hit the right key on the piano.

Now all I have to do is read the sheet music and press the keys. Easy, right?

Hahaha, I wish. I spent about an hour learning the first two SECONDS of the song. And I was mentally drained afterward.

What's going on here? Why did that take so much effort for so little reward?

two choices (and they both suck): tediousness or overwhelm

Each of those steps (read the note, find it on the piano, press the key) isn't that hard in isolation.

But since there are hundreds of notes in the song, I have to do each of those 3 steps hundreds of times.

So, playing this song is like solving 1,000 tiny problems (per song attempt).

Since I'm not used to solving that particular set of 1,000 tiny problems, I have two paths I can take:

1. the tedious path

2. the overwhelming path

The tedious path involves creating hella training wheels myself.

Writing out everything in excruciating detail. Translating the sheet music to letter notes in advance. Labeling the piano keys with letter notes.

In summary: avoiding learning and using my brain as much as possible. Turn it into a step-by-step guide that I could follow on no sleep.

Then, executing.

It would be tedious because

1. writing it out is tedious and

2. turning my head back and forth between the guide and the piano is tedious.

What if I just… didn’t do any of that? What if I disregarded training wheels and figured it out as I went?

Also known as: the overwhelming path.

Here’s what that would look like.

I look at the sheet music. I use a mnemonic like F.A.C.E. to determine the note I need to play. Then I look at the piano, find middle C, and count until I find the right key. Finally, I press the key.

Rinse and repeat until the song is finished.

This is overwhelming because.. well.. if you've never played piano nor read sheet music like me, your brain will start hurting QUICKLY. It's a lot of work to hit the right key on the piano. Like learning algebra for the first time.

It takes me anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds to go from 'dot on the sheet music' to 'hitting the right key on the piano".

The song's tempo is.. let's say an average of 5 notes per second.

I can currently play 0.04 to 0.20 notes per second.

That means I need to be about 25 to 100 times faster. 😵‍💫

Which means I'm a long way away from being able to play the song without serious training wheels.

Regardless of which path I take (tedious vs overwhelming), it's obvious that this goal will take a lot of effort.

And now, at this point, I'm wondering: Do I really want to do this? What was the point again? Why not go watch Netflix instead?

Why pick up a hobby in the first place: developing taste and inspiration

There are a lot of reasons people pick up hobbies.

Some people pick them up to be more interesting to others. To beef up their dating profiles, or a good answer to the "What're your hobbies?" question.

Other people want something to kill time with, but don't want to turn to TV or video games. They want something to show for that time.

Some people are hoping it will turn into a side hustle down the road.

Other people do it to gain the respect of others. To feel the camaraderie:

• "Oh yeah I remember going through that too, it was a pain!"

• "You worked on X? Oh no way. I worked on X for a bit, too!"

• "You did some Y style work?? That's my favorite! Let me see!"

I would argue that reasons like those are the most common reasons people pick hobbies up. I’ve picked up a hobby for all of those reasons at some point, heheh.

But I think the best reason is because the hobby is enjoyable.

Or, at least, it will become enjoyable once you get past The Gap:

• when it takes you 30 seconds to hit one key on a piano

• when you struggle to say a single sentence in a new language you're learning

• when you draw a portrait and it looks absolutely nothing like what you tried to draw

It's not that the joy comes from removing the suck. Although that definitely helps.

The joy comes from the creativity and the craft. From the possibilities. From having ideas and wondering: whoa, what would that look like? And then from birthing those new ideas into reality.

I'm sure you've heard of the stereotypes. Professors that live and breathe their subjects of expertise. Artists that won't stop talking about their work. Business owners and CEOs that live to work.

Maybe you're thinking something like,

• "eh I don't care about anything THAT much"

• "I'm not talented enough to be someone like that"

• "that kind of lifestyle sounds too unbalanced for me"

Fair enough. But, consider this.

Anyone with a passion at one point did not have that passion. They were introduced to it. The majority of them could not have predicted they'd be where they are.

I'm not romantic about any of this. I don't think there's a ~ one true love ~ perfect hobby for everyone. Some people have a lot of hobbies they’d excel at.

I’m sure that there’s a handful of people on Earth not destined for any particular hobby. But there are A LOT of diverse hobbies out there. I strongly believe everyone could get really into at least a few of them.

Even then, most people will say: yeah, there were sucky times. Times I wanted to quit.

No one will tell you it was all sunshine and roses. They all went through a period of suck.

But once you've developed the vocabulary and the muscle memory.. once you have the tools and the experience, it's like a whole new world.

A world you had no idea existed beforehand. A world only you have access to. A world that reality and society would never know about if you didn't show it to them. Your unique contribution.

Think about some of your favorite shows, movies, songs, podcasts, books, poems, etc.

I'm sure some of it is incredibly meaningful to you. It defined your childhood. It got you through a breakup. It's the first time you can remember belly-laughing with your best friend.

Someone made that, and without that someone, it wouldn't exist.

It's entirely possible you have something like that lying dormant in you, and it'll be the reason for someone else's meaningful memory.

You have no idea because you haven't been introduced to your hobby, yet.

Or you have, but you haven't gotten past The Period Of Suck. So you have no idea how much fun it could be.

Or you have gotten past The Period of Suck, but the Big Lightning Bolt hasn't struck, yet.

Or the Big Lightning Bolt has struck! But you have no idea. Right now it looks like a rough draft. A quick sketch. The value isn't obvious, yet.

Or the value IS obvious to you. But others don't see it, so you're questioning your sanity. Are you a little too in love with your work? Or maybe you haven't figured out the marketing angle yet. It hasn't found its audience.

Anyway, I don't want to get too preachy.

TL;DR: it's really fun and satisfying once you find your way.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how to help people find their way. I want 100x more meaningful art in the world. I want more stories to be told.

How can I make that happen?

What can help people stick with their hobbies

It seems to me that there are two types of problems people have picking up hobbies:

1. not having enough "training wheels" to prevent overwhelm and tediousness

2. not having the taste to articulate inspiring projects and visions

Solving the training wheels problem

Although creating proper training wheels is a hard problem, I do think it's the easier of the two problems.

To me, the perfect solution is something like a progressively-less-helpful Google Maps navigation. Here's what I mean.

Overwhelm is a symptom of a lack of training wheels.

Tediousness comes from

• having to create your own training wheels - an annoying side quest to the actual goal: learning

• frustration from interfacing with the poor quality training wheels you created

  • For example, have you ever took notes during math class and then later, when you tried to do your homework, realized your notes sucked?

• whiplash from context-switching between your training wheels and your project

  • For example, have you ever tried to assemble IKEA furniture?

  • "Where does part A go? What page is it on again? Oh, page 14. What was I doing again? Wait, does this picture mean this thing? Ok, so I need this part. What page is the list of parts on again?"

So we want something that's

• created for us,

• with great quality, and

• right there with us while we're doing the thing, instead of having to "leave the moment"

I immediately think of Google Maps. It doesn't matter where I want to go, Google Maps

• automatically generates

• specific, step-by-step instructions, and

• spoon-feeds them to me as I drive

That's so freaking cool!! I wish Google Maps existed for hobbies.

The only thing I would add is a "dynamic progressive overload" feature.

If I drive the same route over and over with Google Maps, I develop a dependency on it. I want it to give me less instructions over time as I become more familiar with the route.

Until one day, I don't need it anymore.

If I wanted to create progressive Google Maps for piano, I'd do something like this:

1. Start with a piano with keys that light up and tell me what to press. No learning sheet music. Not even learning the notes.

2. Learn to play the song.

3. If I wanted to learn to play other songs, I'd learn those songs as well.

4. Now, with some experience and examples to reference, picking up the notes should be a lot easier. ("Oh, that note I was playing was an A!")

5. Finally, I'd play the songs while casually looking at the sheet music.

6. Eventually, with enough skill in reading sheet music, I'd try it for songs I don't know.

7. Then, with enough practice, I become able to sight-read! Woohoo!

Side note: this is one of the reasons I believe mentors are so important. Having someone to spoon-feed you tailored-to-you training wheels is invaluable.

Solving the taste problem

I don't have a systematic way to inspire people.. but as far as I can tell, these are things I've seen work:

• solve the training wheels problem

This lowers the barrier to entry and makes everything else easier.

• be shameless about sharing your creations

Talk about why you made what you made. What feelings you feel about it. What other work inspired it. Why you think it's great. What you would do better next time.

It's all inspirational residue that helps fuel the creativity of others!

• share copiously with creators the potential you see in their creations

When you lock yourself away and work on something for a while, it can get lonely and weird. You lose perspective.

Sometimes you're like, WOW this thing I'm making is awesome. Other times you're like.. this is garbage, why am I wasting my time here?

It's incredibly validating to hear from the outside world that you're not crazy!

It also takes barely any effort to let people know that they're not crazy. Tyler Cowen and

Paul Millerd

have made it a point to do this often, and I 100% agree.

Anyhow, that's it! If you have "creator stories" or want to share what you're working on, I'd love to hear it!