I think most people underestimate the amount of discipline that it takes to get good at something, and overestimate the amount of time it takes. I learned WAY more in one summer of programming 16 hours a day than I did in a year of classes where I was supposedly immersing myself in learning. When I say that I was programming 16 hours a day, I was. That was _all_ I did. But I came out the other side with a much better understanding of programming, and a slightly roughed up relationship for it. If I woke up tomorrow with an inexplicable obsession for painting, I suspect I could get _much_ better than I am now in a relatively short amount of time because right now, I've spent a grand total of maybe 20 hours in my entire life painting. The thing that's intriguing to me is the sudden onset of a compulsion to do one particular thing.
I think most people underestimate the amount of discipline that it takes to get good at something, and overestimate the amount of time it takes.
Truer words have never been spoken, across all kinds of domains. When I was a fat desk nerd and decided to become a Marine, I was surprised at how quickly I was able to transform my body and gain the required physical skills - once I found the motivation and discipline. Ditto for language study, programming, etc.
Intermittent ketosis with a 1500 kcal budget (net after exercise), a lot of pull-ups, elliptical, running. Weight training focusing on arms, chest, shoulders, some leg work.
I lost 25# over about 3-4 months while also being more muscular than I'd ever been. Ended up submitting my application with a 290 PFT score out of 300 (20 pull-ups, 100 crunches in 2 minutes, 19:32 3-mile runtime).
> The thing that's intriguing to me is the sudden onset of a compulsion to do one particular thing.
The article suggests something different than a compulsion, something like a sudden awareness of music (or art or whatever) that the person didn't have before.
For example, I have a kind of involuntary hobby of cataloging 3rd inversion seventh chords in music. Tchaikovsky likes to use them in descending chromatic sequences. Brian Wilson has a funny one in "God Only Knows" where the bass idiosyncratically resolves up. Etc.
I didn't have an obsession to learn about harmony and then catalog what I learned in the music I hear. I had an awareness of harmony before I took music lessons, then I learned the notation and went, "Oh, that's what it's called."
I think that's one of the most frustrating parts of learning something that's really new to you. Suppose I had no initial awareness of harmony and tried to learn to identify those 3rd inversion seventh chords by obsessively cataloging them. Perhaps I do some work studying pop and classical music, and after lots of effort I come up with the Tchaikovsky and Beach Boys examples. Then some musician with an awareness of harmony walks in and starts effortlessly adding more: there's one arpeggiated when Link falls in a hole in Ocarina of Time, in the theme to Back to the Future, a famous one in the transition of the last movement of Beethoven's Fifth, a string of them in a chromatic sequence in the Shepherd's Tune from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, etc. "Oh, and isn't the verse of Tom Petty's 'Here Come's My Girl' just a famous alternation between a triad and a 3rd inversion seventh chord built on the first scale degree of a Lydian scale?" In that case I would start to wonder whether I really want to continue with my project.
Of course one can actually learn and improve that awareness with enough practice. But it requires perseverance to keep at it in the face of people who naturally have those same abilities (and often don't seem to value them).
There is a certain level of starting knowledge that can be very beneficial or even necessary before dedicated immersion. Your year of classes likely provided sufficient overview to make the start of your summer more productive than it would have been otherwise.
I mention this only because if you take up painting then I recommend studying up on the materials and processes first (how to mix paints on the palette and also on the canvas).
Very true. I just started playing basketball for the first time in over 20 years. I'm 31 and pretty overweight (300+ at 5"11') and I've been playing for three weeks. After the first week I got my ass kicked by my in-shape friend who plays recreationally in 1v1 over and over again. After two weeks of 3+ hours /day I beat him handily a few times.
Granted, he hadn't touched the ball since our last set of matches but I'm not letting that take the wind put of my sails.
Obsession is the name of the game. Balance is for chumps. Nobody ever got great at anything by spending a reasonable and well adjusted amount of time working on it.
> Obsession is the name of the game. Balance is for chumps. Nobody ever got great at anything by spending a reasonable and well adjusted amount of time working on it.
You had a good point but this seems completely unnecessary. You're not making it into the NBA here, so "great" seems like a very strong word. For most people, basketball and such is not the main purpose, but a side event, a hobby, etc., so it's pretty strange for them to choose to obsess over it.
Of course focusing on one thing and only just that one thing will make you relatively good at it. Everyone already knew that. The issue is just that people have jobs, relatives, other hobbies, etc., so balance becomes more relevant. It's more interesting when someone gets good at something without being able to allot huge amounts of time to it.
