it's been a while!

a chat about hobbies, marketability culture, perfectionism, and finding joy in the process

A group of middle-aged soccer lovers play in an amateur local league, even though they’re wildly out of shape. An elderly woman takes an amateur ceramics class, although her hands aren’t strong enough to center the clay on the wheel. Thrift store shelves everywhere are crammed full of clumsily executed elementary school art projects, half-used craft kits, discarded sporting equipment—you name it.

It can be so easy to scoff at these kinds of things. To roll your eyes at a painting that was clearly done by someone with no sense of color theory. To turn up your nose at a plate of lumpy cookies. To inwardly make fun of someone’s wonky hand-sewn tote bag, their unpolished makeup, or their off-kilter photography.

Why are we assuming that these things should be perfect?

The word “amateur” is defined in Merriam-Webster as “one lacking in experience or competence in an art or science” (or hobby, or sport, or…).But that’s actually the second definition listed, and is superseded by:

one who engages in a pursuit, study, science, or sport as a pastime rather than as a profession.

Amateur stems from the Latin verb amare, meaning “to love,” and then from the Latin noun amator, meaning “a lover, a devoted admirer, or a devoted friend.” With this context, I feel like we can modify the above definition a little bit for today’s purposes:

one who engages in a pursuit, study, science, or sport out of love for that subject rather than as a profession.

This isn’t really groundbreaking stuff here. If you are a pediatrician by profession, but test new cupcake recipes in your pajamas at home, you’re technically an amateur baker, regardless of whether your cupcakes look bakery-ready. By definition, any hobby that a person does purely for enjoyment, and not as a means of financial gain, will be the result of an amateur’s work. There’s nothing wrong with being an amateur—it quite simply means that you’re not a professional in that particular field.

I’ve seen “amateur” art exhibits that aren’t that good, but I’ve seen other ones that are stunning. I’m an amateur musician in that I sing in the shower and sometimes sit down at the piano, but I know a few amateur musicians whose voices make me literally cry tears of awe and who intuitively understand music theory in a way I never could.

In case I’m losing you a little bit here, here’s the point I’m trying to make: the scope of “amateur” work is enormous. There will be people who are great at doing what they love. But there are also people who continue to do what they love even if it’s not great—just because they love doing it.

Unfortunately, I feel like our world (at least, in our [cue the script] late-stage capitalistic, Western, first-world context) is increasingly focused on making money.

Just kidding! We’ve always loved making money, except now we’re trying to squeeze every last drop of enjoyment from people who do hobbies for fun because if your products were better, I think people would really want to buy them and wow that necklace you made for yourself is so cute! do you sell them? and not trying to be rude but she literally has no talent and how do u expect people to want to buy these if ur only making them in pink?

If the output of someone’s creative passion happens to be high-quality, the immediate assumption is that a) it’s worth selling, and b) it should be sold. If, on the other hand, someone’s creative pursuits yield “amateurish-looking” work (read, tacky or clumsy), the assumption is that a) the person would like constructive critical feedback because b) they are hoping to eventually sell their work.

Why does everything we do have to be marketable in some way? The whole point of being an “amateur,” in the original sense, is that we can pursue hobbies and sports and learning without the pressure that comes with knowing that our livelihoods are at stake. We were created for the sort of unfettered delight in creative expression that these fun activities provide for us.

In psychology, this positive experience is known as the “flow state,” or (according to Wikipedia, that modern Alexandria!) the mental state in which a person performing some activity is immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.

Recently, I undertook the somewhat intimidating task of taking a thrifted shirt (great fabric, but wrong size and unflattering shape) completely apart and restructuring it into a new shirt. Just for fun. Because I like sewing. But had I ever sewn a piece of clothing before, let alone one almost completely from scratch? Did I know how to align sleeves, or create a pattern on the fly? Uhhhh…no.

So I spent 8 hours of a day off from work hunched over on my bedroom floor trying to make this shirt. I wasn’t listening to music, or watching other media. (Wow! I can be a real person and not an iPad baby!)

All that to say, the flow state is real because that 8 hours sure passed a lot quicker than 8 hours at work, dealing with the lovely and neurotic public of Davis, CA. I took my time. I added extra details. And (to no one’s greater surprise than my own, given my lack of experience), I actually ended up with something pretty cute.

Here’s something worth mentioning, though: I lucked into a successful outcome today. The sleeves fit, my very-much-eyeballed measurements somehow all matched, and the final shirt is very #milkmaid #coquette #dainty. However, I just as easily could have ended up with an unwearable Thneed because I’m simply new to making garments. But you know what? I still would have been in the flow state because sewing is just something I love doing.

I think that’s where we as a society are missing the mark on the whole hobbies and marketability thing. People who are really doing something because they love the act of creating/doing/learning that particular thing probably don’t care as much about the outcome as everyone else thinks they should. For them, the joy and fulfillment is as much in the process as in the result.

At least, in theory.

If you’re a perfectionist, like I am, then that statement is a little harder to come to terms with.

Honestly? I still would have probably been in the flow state if my sewing project went to pieces. But in my heart of hearts, I also would have been deeply disappointed if I didn’t produce something “good.” Somehow, I feel like the quality (or lack thereof) of what I produce reflects back on the quality of myself as a person.

Including my writing—especially my writing. Which is part of the reason that I’ve been MIA for almost two months on this little Substack.

You might be thinking that I’m super lame for feeling so perfectionistic about a writing space that literally only has 24 subscribers (I can hear the voices now: who does she even think she is? jk I love you guys) but seriously…it’s a thing.

When I started this Substack, I had all these ideas about what I would include in my little online space. I wanted to send out music recommendations, share random deep dives, send some creative writing out into the void—but as soon as I started writing a few articles, I dug myself into a bit of a (oh no they all have to be a certain amount of words or else people will think I’m slacking what if they think this is a dumb topic okay I won’t do it well now it feels like homework a little bit) creative paralysis pit.

Where it began to feel like just another deadline to meet, even though this project was ostensibly for myself. Where I set precedents for myself and I was afraid that people wouldn’t want to see something different (even though, again, this project was ostensibly for myself). Are we all seeing the irony here? Hint: it was all in my own head :)

Hence almost two months of no ideas, no desire to write (even though it’s something I love dearly), and no ability to follow up the last article, which was a 3000-word behemoth. I guess I was just afraid that I wouldn’t be able to keep up the quality of what I put out earlier in the summer, and that would reflect back onto me as a person.

But because I am an amateur—a lover of writing—I am going to return to regular posting, whether it’s a well-researched topical article or something a little more free-flowing, like this. Like I said earlier, amateur work can be clumsy or polished and everything in between—but it will be marked by a true love of the craft regardless of how “marketable” it is perceived as.

Thanks for sticking around. I can’t wait to open the chutes of my brain and release the floodgates.

I can’t promise that every single thing I write will be witty or thought-provoking or even legible (I do a lot of late-night half-asleep writing), but I can promise at least a few gold nuggets tucked in with the rest of the ore.

Happy hunting!

-Lenny