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Ok the most important sentence in this essay is its subtitle: “Advice for myself around leisure activities” Personally I am no perfectionist at all, but I don

by d--b 3y ago

Ok the most important sentence in this essay is its subtitle: “Advice for myself around leisure activities” Personally I am no perfectionist at all, but I don’t see the fun in making stuff myself that I could otherwise buy. I took up sewing, not because I want to sew the perfect shirt, but because men’s fashion sucks. That said, I sew stuff I can wear. So it needs to look at least as good as what I could buy. I don’t think that it’s “acting like being famous”. Similarly, I am writing a screenplay, because I have a lot of experience reading bad screenplay that were actually made into movies, and I think I can write one that is at least as good as the worst ones I read. I don’t paint or take photographs because I know mine will look terrible. Maybe that would be my advice in taking up hobbies: aim to be better than the worst people who do it professionally.

atoav 3y ago
This is good advice, I'd like to ad one caveat tho: It is not a good idea to base your decision whether to start doing a hobby on your own perceived ability to get good at it. For one the much more important metric is whether you enjoy doing it, because ultimately you are doing it for yourself. Secondly, as an educator I have to say that many people absolutely suck at predicting their own inability to learn a thing. There are many people who say they will be bad at $X and because of that prediction they avoid doing $X, which in turn is the reason they can never become good at $X. It is much better to just take the gift that Punk culture has given us and focus on finding A) joy in doing things even if you are not good at them and B) finding your own way of doing them, because for many hobbies there just isn't one objectively good way of doing them.
selestify 3y ago
> Maybe that would be my advice in taking up hobbies: aim to be better than the worst people who do it professionally. I guess this is my gripe with advice in general: Why should anyone else make that their aim? It’s great that it works for you, but I don’t think that’s applicable to me :)
- maximus-decimus 3y ago
  Using something you build brings a lot of satifsaction.
bloak 3y ago
> Maybe that would be my advice in taking up hobbies: aim to be better than the worst people who do it professionally. Then I hope you don't count sports as hobbies because being better than the worst people who do it for fun is a stretch goal if it's me doing any competitive sport.
brandall10 3y ago
"I took up sewing, not because I want to sew the perfect shirt, but because men’s fashion sucks" I applaud taking up this skill, but there absolute is stellar men's fashion out there, it's just not outwardly public AFA retailers and brands. I was a member of https://www.styleforum.net https://www.styleforum.net for many years and highly recommend it. And you can get MTM custom clothing on the relative cheap. I've used https://www.divij.com/ https://www.divij.com/ in the past, a small family run business where they book appointments in major cities to do measurements and provide sample books so you can inspect the fabrics in person, then order online any shirts and suiting.
- d--b 3y ago
  No offense but the fashion I like is way more colorful.
  - brandall10 3y ago
    That statement isn't particularly specific, but Styleforum covers everything - want to dress to the standards of a 19th century dandy? They have you covered. There are sartorial competitions they chronicle where it would be impossible to get any more colorful.
Vox_Leone 3y ago
>Personally I am no perfectionist at all, but I don’t see the fun in making stuff myself that I could otherwise buy. That's ok, but then there are things that are not available to buy. I want a 500-850 degrees C 3D printing hotend, which can only be built of ceramics. I'm a hacker. Gotta make it. https://voxleone.com/2024/03/05/3d-printing-im-making-a-500c-ceramic-hot-end/ https://voxleone.com/2024/03/05/3d-printing-im-making-a-500c...
- d--b 3y ago
  Yes exactly. It's very difficult to find Mexican peppers in France, just gonna grow them. No interest in growing tomatoes whatsoever.

by d--b 3y ago

atoav 3y ago

This is good advice, I'd like to ad one caveat tho: It is not a good idea to base your decision whether to start doing a hobby on your own perceived ability to get good at it. For one the much more important metric is whether you enjoy doing it, because ultimately you are doing it for yourself. Secondly, as an educator I have to say that many people absolutely suck at predicting their own inability to learn a thing. There are many people who say they will be bad at $X and because of that prediction they avoid doing $X, which in turn is the reason they can never become good at $X. It is much better to just take the gift that Punk culture has given us and focus on finding A) joy in doing things even if you are not good at them and B) finding your own way of doing them, because for many hobbies there just isn't one objectively good way of doing them.

selestify 3y ago

> Maybe that would be my advice in taking up hobbies: aim to be better than the worst people who do it professionally. I guess this is my gripe with advice in general: Why should anyone else make that their aim? It’s great that it works for you, but I don’t think that’s applicable to me :)

maximus-decimus 3y ago
Using something you build brings a lot of satifsaction.

bloak 3y ago

> Maybe that would be my advice in taking up hobbies: aim to be better than the worst people who do it professionally. Then I hope you don't count sports as hobbies because being better than the worst people who do it for fun is a stretch goal if it's me doing any competitive sport.

brandall10 3y ago

"I took up sewing, not because I want to sew the perfect shirt, but because men’s fashion sucks" I applaud taking up this skill, but there absolute is stellar men's fashion out there, it's just not outwardly public AFA retailers and brands. I was a member of https://www.styleforum.net https://www.styleforum.net for many years and highly recommend it. And you can get MTM custom clothing on the relative cheap. I've used https://www.divij.com/ https://www.divij.com/ in the past, a small family run business where they book appointments in major cities to do measurements and provide sample books so you can inspect the fabrics in person, then order online any shirts and suiting.

d--b 3y ago
No offense but the fashion I like is way more colorful.
- brandall10 3y ago
  That statement isn't particularly specific, but Styleforum covers everything - want to dress to the standards of a 19th century dandy? They have you covered. There are sartorial competitions they chronicle where it would be impossible to get any more colorful.

Vox_Leone 3y ago

>Personally I am no perfectionist at all, but I don’t see the fun in making stuff myself that I could otherwise buy. That's ok, but then there are things that are not available to buy. I want a 500-850 degrees C 3D printing hotend, which can only be built of ceramics. I'm a hacker. Gotta make it. https://voxleone.com/2024/03/05/3d-printing-im-making-a-500c-ceramic-hot-end/ https://voxleone.com/2024/03/05/3d-printing-im-making-a-500c...

d--b 3y ago
Yes exactly. It's very difficult to find Mexican peppers in France, just gonna grow them. No interest in growing tomatoes whatsoever.