I've been thinking about my issues with sticking to various hobbies (mainly drawing). A lot of this came from a realization that I need more creativity in my life. This, in turn, brought me to the conclusion that I've been looking at what I enjoy the wrong way. I've been sort of stumbling around looking for the state that is commonly called flow, rather than trying to think about what causes that and then seeking that out. I think a lot of my feelings of restlessness have been the result of not really thinking about what I want and how to get there, but just going on these vague feelings of "wouldn't it be nice if...." The other problem is that I've been resisting the whole idea of flow, because I wanted to be conscious of enjoying what I was doing. But with flow that's not really possible, since the whole point is that you're just focused on and into what you're doing.

If you've never heard the term "flow," it was formally coined by a psychologist named Mihaly Csikszentmihályi in the '80s and '90s. He became fascinated sometime in the 1970s with the way artists would lose themselves in their work, and was interested in studying what, exactly, was going on. He ultimately published a book on the subject called, simply, Flow in 2005. Some (primarily Eastern) religions talk about this, e.g. the Daoist idea of "doing without doing" (wu wei), with similar ideas showing up in Buddhism and Hinduism.

Csikszentmihályi and his fellow researchers derived a kind of rubric for describing the state you get in when performing an activity, based primarily on how challenging you think it is and how skilled you think you are. So for example, if your skill level is high and you perceive the challenge level as low, you'll be bored. If the opposite is true (i.e. the challenge level is above your skill level), you become worried or anxious.

Under this theory, there are three things that have to be present in order to enter the "flow" state.

1. A clear set of goals and progress.

2. Clear and immediate feedback.

3. Balance between perceived challenge and perceived skill

At first blush, #3 has always been my problem. I get frustrated with my results (or lack thereof) really easily, and then start anticipating those feelings of frustration, meaning I just avoid doing it. So I've been focusing on that issue, namely my frustration, but not really getting anywhere. Finally I realized that brute force isn't going to help, because I was addressing the end of the process. But it's clear that this isn't actually where the hang-up is. After all, frustration (or unhappiness generally) is ultimately the difference between where we want to be and where we are. If I can't hand-wave my skill up to a new level, then I need to adjust the other end of the equation. Math!

It's also become clear that just having my goal be quantity of practice isn't enough. After all, this doesn't change factor 3 at all, and just means I'll be frustrated more often, or at least on a set schedule. At a practical level, this has lead to throwing out the schedule altogether. So the question is how to adjust my goals without it being something vague like "it's okay to suck." I'm not sure how to really internalize that, and anyway, I don't know what it means. At the least, it's not something that I can just turn on or off. I'm obviously not going to be Rembrandt in a few days, and that shouldn't be the goal. But I don't know what my goals should be instead.

I've been thinking about all this in light of kung fu -- what makes that something I've been able to stick with and not have anywhere near the levels of frustration? A couple things have come to mind. The first that you don't seen your goals. Even watching my teacher apply kung fu to someone, there's a lot of things going on that you need experience to see (true for any skill -- the more skill you have yourself, the more you can see in others), to say nothing of his holding a lot back. But this means that there's a lot less I have to compare myself to, which in turn makes the goals more concrete and more realistic. The other thing is that because it's done in a classroom setting, and because I trust my teacher, I trust that the time I spend practicing will pay dividends. With trying to art, that's not the case. I can look at something and see some things I need to fix, but have only the vaguest idea of what, and even less of how to go about it.

So this is as far as I've gotten so far. I'm excited about possibly figuring this out, and I definitely think I'm on to something. I'm thinking I may need to find a local art student who wants to make a little cash by giving me some more organized progression and critique (or find someone online). In the meantime, I'm trying to find some simpler styles to emulate, and just work on keeping my goals realistic. We'll see how it goes.