Dabble even if you wobble.
Dilettantism is okay, okay?
My jewelry-making kit, the potholders I knitted, the ukulele I bought because I decided I “needed” the discipline of a musical instrument paint the colorful picture of a career dilettante. While getting the side-eye from the many, many remnants of past hobbies I have left in my wake is not fun, I have been an exemplary professional at amateurism.
Every time I announced that I was starting a new hobby, my (usually supportive) friends and family would snicker. Why, yes, I had garnered for myself the reputation of giving in to flights of fancy only to get bored and move on to a different pursuit. Despite deriding my rap, I understood and accepted it for one reason:
I did not think of my hobbies as unproductive.
To make my dabbling efforts an organized mess, I had a self-imposed 100-hour rule to explore if I enjoyed an avocation (à la Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000-hour rule from Outliers). If I didn’t, I could recognize sunk costs and move on, instead of crying over spilled milk.
I would later learn I had subconsciously embarked on an inter-sectional journey of self-discovery and scientific curiosity. I took up pastimes that were touted to improve my mental health, to empirically determine if they worked or if they were, indeed, Scheiße. I picked up jewelry-making because I wanted to practice soldering after I began working at a material science lab. I started knitting to improve my concentration and deal with anxiety. (Don’t ask me about the uke, though. *le sigh*)
I learned I was looking for something — both internally and externally — and believed I would find it by trying different things on for size. I harbored no illusions of becoming a Renaissance woman; I just wanted to DIY my inner self, rather than master multiple (or even one) hobbies. The scientist in me relished being process-oriented as opposed to goal-driven.
I know what all this sounds like. It plays into the pejorative assertion that dilettantes are lazy, unmotivated, time-wasting quitters. And I get that. Many of us subscribe to the dogma that dilettantism automatically implies we are superficial learners while failing to recognize that superficial learning is still learning. Especially if you learn about yourself.
What with the overwhelming need to become productivity machines, why spend hours pursuing an activity only to drop it completely, and shift gears to another that may also prove fruitless? After all, rodents only have a limited amount of time at our disposal, so shouldn’t we be trying to spend it trying to get ahead and grab a slice of the oh-so-delicious cheese?
Make no mistake: I am not endorsing systemic quitting. Dabbling is not the same as “taking the exit ramp” the minute things go awry. So, we are left with three options:
- Not trying new hobbies.
- Continuing with a hobby we hate because we need to meet some arbitrary standard for a pastime to be considered worthwhile.
- Risk dabbling in a hobby we may eventually give up.
(4. “Netflix and Chill” instead of having any hobby because that’s the millennial Zeitgeist, but I digress)
Most of us pick Option 2 because Options 1 and 3 are too embarrassing to our social standing. None of us want to be labeled boring — or worse, quitters. Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, talks about our innate need to see our actions as a means to an end:
“The assignment of purpose to everything is called teleology. Children are native teleologists, and many never grow out of it.”
Thus, it would follow that we seek answers to what hobbies are for. “Managing stress” is one common utilitarian purpose served on a top-of-the-Maslow’s-pyramid platter… A fine motivation to have until we try to win at a hobby and get stuck in an infinite loop of stress. We are often envious of disciplined people who can do one thing well at a time. This is to say nothing of polymaths who make us feel more inadequate than ever. We adhere to the ludicrous belief that a pastime has to be a one-shot rousing success. The alternative — “failing” at it and trying to find a new one — seems unacceptable and indicative of capriciousness.
We end up experiencing overload burnout, trying to force results in a short time to maximize our ROI on time and efforts spent, instead of owning amateurism like pros (ha!).
I propose that you espouse nihilistic dilettantism instead:
- Dabble before committing to a new hobby. This could reduce the fear of failure and prevent burnout.
- Understand that not everything you dabble in will yield the results you want.
- Get out of hobbies that stifle you with no shame or guilt.
- Think about why you want to start a particular activity. Be mindful of the intent and the process, rather than the goals.
Apart from the aforementioned reasons why dabbling might not suck, here’s one reason why you should dabble in dabbling:
Dabbling improves your sense of self-compassion.
Operant conditioning is ubiquitous in every milieu; success is rewarded while failure is punished. Since nihilistic dilettantism has a presumption of failure, we are less likely to think that success is the be-all and end-all of our existence. Failing teaches us the reality of imperfection. We unlearn the notion that empathizing with yourself is making excuses for your failures. We become more open to stepping outside our comfort zone and adapting to situations as they arise. We stop thinking of activities in terms of productivity and start thinking of them in terms of what they mean to us.
