And in the rest of the week
Oct. 14th, 2011 11:48 am✓ Tuned a standard magic deck
✓ Went to Chesterton bridge club
✓ Replied to Emperor's buffy emails
Hobbies tend to come in waves. I get really excited about something, think about it intensly for two weeks, and then real life intervenes.
I can really overcommit in the first bit. When I got into scrabble, and standard magic, I spent a lot of time thinking about it. I think this is partly that if something's fun and not what I'm supposed to be doing it's easy to plough energy into that rather than something else, that perhaps might make more sense in the long term. And there's also a problem that I'll spend a disproportionate amount of effort thinking about something, but then end up only doing it once or twice.
OTOH, I think I've got considerably better at harnessing that energy; of realising what a realistic and pleasurable outcome of that burst of activity is and steering towards it, and of capturing anything useful I've learned, so I can pick it up from notes next time I get interested.
For instance, with magic decks and fiction both, the strategy seems to be (1) think it up, plough as much stuff as possible into it (2) get attached to it and refuse to take out things I liked, and go away for months (3) come back, having subconsciously come to terms with which bits are good, and which bits are sunk costs that should be jetissoned :)
I was really pleased to play some bridge. I'd feared that after several years I'd be completely out of my depth, but it wasn't so. We were definitely playing a bit below average all evening, and there were a several suboptimal things, but there wasn't a string of complete blow-outs, and all the drawbacks were things I think I could get better at. And my play speed and familiarity with the mechanics of bidding boxes, score cards, etc, were not below the average standard of people there.
I concluded that I don't need to be perfect at everything before I try it (or at least, I don't need to be perfect at most things, and to find out in advance), and it's often fine to go along to something new with, say, half an hour of preparation to make sure you're not making horrible gaffs, but don't have to compulsively study to make sure you're not an embarrassment :)
✓ Went to Chesterton bridge club
✓ Replied to Emperor's buffy emails
Hobbies tend to come in waves. I get really excited about something, think about it intensly for two weeks, and then real life intervenes.
I can really overcommit in the first bit. When I got into scrabble, and standard magic, I spent a lot of time thinking about it. I think this is partly that if something's fun and not what I'm supposed to be doing it's easy to plough energy into that rather than something else, that perhaps might make more sense in the long term. And there's also a problem that I'll spend a disproportionate amount of effort thinking about something, but then end up only doing it once or twice.
OTOH, I think I've got considerably better at harnessing that energy; of realising what a realistic and pleasurable outcome of that burst of activity is and steering towards it, and of capturing anything useful I've learned, so I can pick it up from notes next time I get interested.
For instance, with magic decks and fiction both, the strategy seems to be (1) think it up, plough as much stuff as possible into it (2) get attached to it and refuse to take out things I liked, and go away for months (3) come back, having subconsciously come to terms with which bits are good, and which bits are sunk costs that should be jetissoned :)
I was really pleased to play some bridge. I'd feared that after several years I'd be completely out of my depth, but it wasn't so. We were definitely playing a bit below average all evening, and there were a several suboptimal things, but there wasn't a string of complete blow-outs, and all the drawbacks were things I think I could get better at. And my play speed and familiarity with the mechanics of bidding boxes, score cards, etc, were not below the average standard of people there.
I concluded that I don't need to be perfect at everything before I try it (or at least, I don't need to be perfect at most things, and to find out in advance), and it's often fine to go along to something new with, say, half an hour of preparation to make sure you're not making horrible gaffs, but don't have to compulsively study to make sure you're not an embarrassment :)