Never Reach Your [Hobby] Goals

Never reach your goals, especially if they are for your hobbies.

Before you go thinking that I'm nuts, hear me out. Goals are often things that we set out to achieve, and they serve as the inspiration to keep on striving through the path that we had set towards getting to them. With a goal in mind, one has the beacon to walk towards, a thing to focus on.

Now, what if you've reached your goal? What happens next?

In a work/career setting, the answer is usually quite straightforward---go lateral. Put in a different way, it means branching out into a related domain, or develop ``soft skills'' into the so-called T-shaped person. As a career option, it makes sense, since there really isn't a peak with respect to the means of making a living---having more tools in one's arsenal is almost always an asset with respect to the work environment, though there is usually a hidden cost of having too many useful tools; but that's a problem for a different day.

Most people will not have any issues about developing laterally once they have reached their goals at work, especially if they have run out of ``vertical'' goals to achieve. At some point, the challenge will be too great, and one will eventually revert to a level where one is more comfortable and competent, while still earning enough to pay the bills and power any other side stuff.

Hobbies are things that we do ``for fun''. It's what we do to pass the time when we aren't doing things to enhance survival and/or reproduction. If the hobby is no longer ``fun'', it becomes highly likely that we drop it in favour of something else.

Since hobbies are ``for fun'', we tend to not take it as ``seriously'' the way we do for what we do for work (I'm discounting anyone who uses their hobbies as a ``side hustle''---I think of that as going semi-professional). So, when one reaches the goals of one's hobbies, especially the ultimate-type of goal, what happens next?

Going lateral means that we are taking the hobbies seriously, which defeats the whole idea of a hobby. Not going lateral and leaving it goalless is akin to acknowledging that there is no longer anything else that one wants to achieve within the hobby, which can lead to stagnation and eventual disinterest.

Hence, it probably is better to never reach one's goals, especially if they are for one's hobbies, particularly if one wants to keep doing the hobby for a very long time without killing off the fun.

Instead of interpreting what I'm saying as The Truth, think of it as a cautionary tale from personal experience. I love Geocaching; I've been doing it from way back in 2009(?) when Jason first introduced me to my first geocache in Singapore, as well as my first trackable.

Fast forward to today, in 2024. I've not gone out to find a geocache in years, with much of the momentum killed after I've taken part in a Mega-Event, visited Geocaching headquarters in Seattle, and completed a D5/T5 geocache. These were ``ultimate''-type goals, and once they were met, my interest in the hobby of Geocaching just started dying out.

On a more scary note, my dizi playing. I recently completed my set of all 27 possible dizi, and having played a Grade 9 piece (《山村迎亲人》) in concert, I find myself staring out into the void going ``What's next?''. I have been expanding myself laterally with trying to do composition, and even playing in the Music Ministry on the concert flute, but at times some of these things just feel like I'm really taking things too seriously. I still derive fun, but the marginal amount of fun per effort is seemingly getting smaller. My first love here is still the dizi, and I'm at the level where unless I go semi-professional, I think I'm dooming myself to some kind of stagnation, which scares me.

``MT, you could like, go fusion music, or jazz?''

Sure, true. But that's going lateral, see? And it involves me making the decision of actually wanting to go down that path, which I have already asserted as ``being serious''. I do wonder though... part of me probably knows that it'll be something that I must do (or give up dizi playing), but how to do this is something that I will need to come to grips with.

After all, we only evolve as effectively as the environment allows us to. If the environment is stagnating, then there is no incentive to evolve; conversely, if the environment is too competitive, then one needs to be sufficiently serious in order to evolve fast enough to not die. In either case, ``fun'' seems to be reduced.

Tough calls for me for now.

As a side project, I am working on shakuhachi now. I've the Bell Shakuhachi from Jon Krypos (he renamed himself to Josen), and recently got some Kinko-ryu study material (the most obvious is the use of ロツレチリ for the notation of the notes DFGAC). It's a much tougher instrument than even the 洞箫 because of the way the embouchure cut is made---the angle required is very precise, and there is very little lipping involved as compared to the other edge-blown flutes. Only time will tell what will become of this.

Anyway, this is starting to get a bit long, so I'll stop here. Till the next update then.