# gome — spin-up

# Hobby spin-up period

23 May 2023, 10:30 PM

There are a lot of things I would like to learn about someday. There are a lot of things I wish I had started learning earlier. There are a lot of things I would like to learn, but probably won’t get around to in the foreseeable future, maybe ever. There are a lot of things I wish I had started learning, but I’m not sure if it’s worth starting now.

When you take an interest in something, say, a new hobby, e.g. skateboarding, there’s a period of time during which you don’t really have competence in it. You don’t even have a full grasp of what it is you’re trying to do (you might not even know what kind of tricks are possible). You spend time researching and trying things out to learn what you don’t know. As you learn, you gain momentum in the hobby, and doing more with it (like more difficult tricks) become feasible or easier as you build your foundation.

I’ve started enough hobbies and special interests at this point to recognize this “spin-up period” as a kind of pattern. Usually if I’m thinking about starting something new, I’ll first pause to consider whether it’s really worth it to me to invest that spin-up period. This is helpful to keep me from constantly spinning my wheels on things I’m only temporarily interested in.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure the consideration is always a good thing. If anything, I think I tend to overestimate how long it will take me to get to a state of momentum with a new hobby. The overestimation probably comes from my perfectionism, which tells me that trying something new wouldn’t be worth it if it would take months to get any good at it.

I guess the important thing is to find satisfaction in every part of the process, including the learning and even the mistakes. Maybe the thing that got you interested in painting was seeing incredible masterpieces, and you just want to get to the part where you can do that. But if you can’t find interest in your first brush strokes, you’ll never get there. Of course, no pressure if you don’t want to do that, either! Basically, let’s all just try to have fun!

Do you have things you would like to learn but don’t know if they’re worth starting? Does perfectionism get in the way of starting new things for you? In retrospect, how long was the spin-up period for one of your current hobbies? Let me know your thoughts at my Ctrl-C email: `gome ​@ ​ctrl-c.club`.