Hobbyists

I've always been bothered by people who talk about wanting to learn a new skill, or start a new hobby...and then quit after a short time when they lose interest. For a few days, maybe even a few weeks, people throw themselves into new and fresh activities, always talking to their friends and their families about how invigorating and important their new foci are. The problem with being the person who hears about all this is (and I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way), there's only so far I can go with the conversation before I start thinking "Okay man, let's change the subject here." I can respect the initial enthusiasm and making the attempt to practice new skills. That's what life's all about: opening new doors and cultivating knowledge (at least, that's how I see it). But it gets to a point where the zeal I respect changes into a cloying presence, like having an elephant in the room that won't shut the fuck up. First, I hear things like "You should join up," or "We could do  this together." And even that, I'm okay with. I understand that having similar interests is important in any social group-relationships, friends, etc. But the suggestion grows over time to a grating cacophony. I don't like people telling me how to spend my money or my time, and if I can respect your appreciation of learning, then I'd appreciate that courtesy being returned.

My real problem with hobbyists isn't so much the vacillating on activity planning--sampling, if you will-but just the incessant hype which people surround themselves with when they first begin learning something. Life places demands on our time, on our resources, and we do our best to fit our hobbies and interests in where we can. Odds are, most of the things we-and yes, I sample as well-pick up will be dropped in short order, since once the initial charm wears off and the real work of learning begins, life has a way of re-assigning it on our list of priorities.

Part of me despises hearing hobbyists talk because I recognize my own abortive attempts to become a modern Renaissance Man every single time I witness the early stages of the hobbyist-cycle, before one's mettle is tested.

There is a moment in every new life-altering choice where we must decide whether to continue in our studies or to let the first hurdles we encounter dismay us enough to let go of the passion we started with. We don't see growth in our own capabilities, giving time to the activity becomes draining rather than fulfilling, or life hits us in ways we don't expect, knocks the proverbial wind out of us and we have to reset to get our lives under any semblance of control again. There are a million reasons people find to quit, but  more often than not, it is a slow, creeping lethargy which unravels us. Practicing every day becomes practicing every other day, becomes practicing occasionally, becomes another memory collecting dust, one which you polish from time to time, only long enough to realize that you vaguely regret giving up in the first place, and tell yourself that you'll pick your old hobby back up again just as soon as you have enough free time...sound familiar?

In the past year, I have purchased an acoustic guitar, signed up for martial arts lessons, begun learning how to salsa dance and thrown myself into a self-planned exercise and nutritional program to get in some semblance of physical fitness. My guitar has gone unused for the last ten months, the martial arts classes turned out to be over-priced and uninformative (in this category, I have been studying off and on for years, when instruction was available to me), and because of dental surgery to remove my upper wisdom teeth, I failed to uphold the demands of my healthy lifestyle. All the gains I made over two months of regular and consistent dieting and exercise have been lost in the last month alone. So, of the four big activities that I "devoted" myself to in the last year alone, only one (and the most recently added, for the record) is still part of my weekly agenda.

I think we expect too much of ourselves in too short a time. Either we jump into a multitude of activities and hope to be masters in our fields within a few weeks, or we pick a small number of activities and expect to be able to plan out our own rate of progression in those activities. That's never how things are going to go and to demand anything beyond the natural rate of learning (different for every person) is to invite disappointment and bitterness. And I think part of that bitterness stems from the fact that we advertise our intentions to others before we're ready. We tell our friends "I'm going to learn to do this and by next year, I'll be this good at it." Never place that kind of stress on yourself. There's no reason to do that unless you're an emotional masochist.

Those who dedicate themselves to a particular craft, whether it's martial arts, music, or any of a myriad of other interests showcase their talents as a  means of perpetuating the skills they've cultivated, of spreading the value of what they've learned to others(or just plain showing off). And, of course, there is a great deal of pleasure taken in performing one's trade with some measure of finesse. I think there is a turning point reached, when the early hurdles are cleared and a novice at a skill becomes a regular practitioner honing their abilities. Then a simple hobby becomes a true art. That art is recognized when the practitioner forgets to worry about the obstacles he's overcome already, discards any lingering self-doubts and just gives into the passion they've nurtured to get as far as they have.

At the same time I decided to teach myself to play the guitar, a coworker and friend of mine was also becoming interested and purchased his own instrument. Earlier today, he spoke to me of the satisfaction he took in playing for his first audience. And you know what? The way he spoke, not trying to sway me on any argument, but of the sense of fulfillment he described, that made me want to take my guitar out of my closet and pluck a few notes, maybe pick up my old hobby again. Who knows if I'll stay with it this go around, but I'll take things one day at a time and make sure to just enjoy myself along the way.

Manjuries

So, for the last few days, my neck has felt terrible and trying to write my last post while ignoring how it felt led me to think about my topic for this post. There is an image most men work to publicly maintain about how our injuries either do not affect us in any way, are unnoticed entirely, or are minor "nuisances." Short of extreme or unexpected harm, we menfolk will pretend nothing is amiss and continue with our normal routines. Only in private does this facade break (wherein we can be found curled into a fetal ball waiting for the worst to pass).

This is not to say that women are, by any means, less durable or iron-willed when it comes to ignoring physical discomfort. There are legends in certain cultures of women giving birth on the battlefield and immediately returning to the murder-make. For the sake of comparison, the thought of kidney or gall stones will make any man inwardly cringe just to think about.

I am going to break an unspoken law of men now, and offer a rudimentary translation guide for the varying levels of injuries that can befall a man. Following that will be an example of his reaction to this injury and an explanation of what the man is really trying to say.

Level One: The Stubbed Toe
Man's Reaction: "Ow!" (More often, a loud expletive is uttered in the moment of shock immediately following the injury.)
What He Means: "This isn't worth the effort of hiding, and you've already heard me yell, so I might as well threaten the inanimate object I hurt myself on in a playful way and let the moment pass."

Level Two: The Low Blow
Man's Reaction(Barring immediate physical retaliatory action): "Really? That's it?" *Chuckle*
What He Means: "Oh, God, it's broken! I can feel them in my stomach! Must...turn...whimper of agony...into humorous retort... (Men laughing at such an occurrence do so as a means of masking their attempt to shake their genitals loose of their lower abdomen.)

Level Three: Broken Bones
Man's Reaction: "Hey, check this out!"
What He Means: "By the time the endorphins wear off, I better be at a hospital pumped full of morphine or I will kill someone! Is that...Is that a fucking bone sticking out right there!?"

Level Four: Knife and Bullet Wounds
Man's Reaction: "Oh, this is gonna make an awesome story! I'm just like .50 Cent now!"
What He Means: "Christ, I'm like an extra on the set of 'OZ.' I'll be dead in ten minutes!"

Level Five: Death
Man's Reaction: "Give me a minute. Just need to catch my breath."
What He Means: *Scientific testing has yet to verify the exact meaning of the male reaction to being deceased.

Final Thoughts: What's interesting to note is that the severity of the injury is inversely proportional to the amount of bravado found in the male response to physical injury. Further testing will offer greater insight into this phenomenon.

Rinse and Repeat

I've been thinking yet again about trying to live more conscientiously toward the environment and my impact on it. While taking a shower the other day, I read on the back of my conditioner bottle that turning off the water while letting the conditioner set could save approximately 3000 gallons of water over the course of a single year. Being fairly good at any math that's not calculus (I run screaming from any equation that has more letters than numbers involved in finding the answer), I realized that if one person could save 3000 gallons of water in one year, then two hundred-plus million people (a rough guesstimate on my part since I don't know the exact population of the United States, nor how many people within that group regularly bathe...) would save six hundred billion gallons of water in the same time. Being conservative in my estimates, that's enough water to fill one million Olympic swimming pools. Go, Michael Phelps! Go! Put another way, that much water could power the entire country for three days.

So why haven't I started sooner?

I've always been interested in the idea of "living green," but in practical application, my motivation would run out before I'd even really started. What if I change and no one else does?" I'd ask myself. I'd answer that my own contributions wouldn't make a difference, then let my own enjoyment of creature comforts convince me to let my showers run until the hot water was gone. I decided not to separate my trash into recyclable materials and non-recyclable on the basis that getting what I could to a recycling center would cost me more money than was worth the effort. In short, I dissembled the reasons for not going out of my way just a little to help something bigger than myself.

Planning long-term is the easy part. It's following through that's the real challenge, being certain that somehow effort begets benefit, even if the rewards of our labors can't be seen. I've known many people who claimed to enjoy "working with their hands," especially when it came to farm work, or construction. Being able to visualize something in a unique way is what makes statistics so effective; maybe keeping one more statistic in mind will help me stay motivated this time. The amount of water each person would save in a single shower is roughly equivalent to the amount of water they need to drink over the course of ten days.