Obsession

[rowyn]

'Everyone should work hundred-hour weeks. Find something you want to do for 15 hours a day. Make that your job.'

I can't find the quote on this, although I heard the sentiment attributed to Harlan Ellison.

I'm not sure how I feel about this idea. It's got two core assumptions: (1) that everyone can find something they'd want to do for 15 hours a day and (2) that it's possible to find someone to pay you for whatever (1) is. Just satisfying (1) is difficult: even on the weekends I sometimes find myself without anything I really want to do. Nevermind just one thing.

And yet there is a beautiful, appealling elegance to the idea. Recipe for happiness: find the thing you want to do, and do that. Why cast life as the quest to be happy with what you've do? Why not the quest to do what you'll be happy with?

Although "be happy with what you do" is an elegant answer, too. There are two business self-help books that my job has paid its employees to read in the time that I've been here: Who Moved the Cheese and Fish! I could summarize the former as "go find what makes you happy" and the latter as "be happy with what you have". Some people I know hate both books, which I understand, because both books are focused on playing by the rules of business and what some people really want to do are change the rules. But as general "rules to live by", it seems like one of them ought to be appropriate to any given situation. Either be happy with what you're doing or do something else. How hard is that?

Ah, so much easier to say than to do.

But back to my original quote: there's an implication in it that people can find one thing that they'll be happy doing forever. Oh, not necessarily, I suppose. A career can be a broad thing, spanning many different aspects. Even a job like "writer" or "artist" has wildly different parts to it: writers do outlines and research and revisions and summaries and query letters, as well as the actual "writing" part. Artists don't just paint: they have to get models and study anatomy and prep canvases and clean utensils and so forth. In theory, you could make a job out of doing just one part of those careers and have other people do the rest, although in practice that rarely happens. Likewise, in theory, you could make a career out of doing a bunch of unrelated tasks, all of which you enjoy.

But the implication remains: find that one thing you love enough to do exclusively, and you too can be happy.

I think I see that in the quote because some of my fondest memories are of obsessions. Times when I was absolutely obsessed with doing one thing, when I could do it for 15 hours a day and be happy, when I didn't want to do anything else. Like the fugue state I was in when finishing Silver Scales.

I don't know if it's common for my obsessions to bring me joy. There's an experiment I heard about with rats, where they put two groups in separate cages. One group got food pellets when they pushed a button, and the other got delicious treats for pushing the button. Once the rats had gotten used to this, the researchers deactivated buttons, so they didn't do anything anymore. The first group stopped pushing the button after a while, and looked for other ways to get food.

The second group kept pushing the button until they died of starvation.

Sometimes I feel like that second group, still pushing the button even though it's not working any more.

I've never been able to sustain that state of joyous-with-doing-one-thing for very long. Maybe a few months at the outside. After that, maybe I've finished the project, or gone on to a different one anyway, or keep working at it until it's done and/or makes me happy again (which sometimes does work: see Silver Scales.)

And I don't know which I should try to fix. Is the problem that I obsess, and the solution for me to stop doing it, to pace myself? Is the problem that I do try to pace myself, and I'd be happier giving my passions free rein? Is obsession part of who I am, and I need to find a way to make it work for me? Is there out there, somewhere, the one perfect thing that I can obsess over forever, and I need to keep looking for it?

I don't know. Pretty sure it's not that last one, though.

Comments

[detroitfather.livejournal.com]

I think there is something else at work here, too, which you kind of implied perhaps.

I will say things like: I wish I could paint all day long.

But during those few periods of my life when this was possible, I became very tired of painting, and wished I could do something else. So, it is a moving target.

These days, I'll say: I wish I had never ever painted. I just want to work on old/custom cars all day. But to do that lucratively, you have to deal with other people. And (as someone has famously said), hell is other people. I would quickly lose my patience trying to satisfy the demands of quirky custom car customers.

I don't reckon you can win at this game, no matter how you slice it.

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

Yes...

I need to think about this some more, but I see obsession coming in good and bad versions. The bad version is when it is functioning as a distraction from something that needs fixing. The good version helps one Get Stuff Done.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

What makes me happy is to have no responsibilities, or at least no responsibilities that I could be acting on right at that moment. If there's nothing more important that I could be doing, it doesn't matter if I'm riding rollercoasters or messing around with stuff or just sitting on the couch staring out the window.

So, to be happy with my work, I'd have to have money magically appear with no expectation of anyone getting anything out of it.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Oh I sorely disagree. When you make your life's pleasure your job, then it's no longer your pleasure - it's your job. Nothing kills the muse faster than telling her she has to come through if she wants to eat that month.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

When I've found I am obsessed with something, it usually means I have to let it go.

[octantis.livejournal.com]

I think the obsession theory is oversimplified and naive. Even if there's a guarantee that this obsession will stay fulfilling for the rest of one's life without burning out, it's going to make most people unbalanced. Some people can survive and even thrive that way, but being a well-rounded individual, aware of the world around them, seems a lot healthier by and large. Even the 100-hour weekly obsessions that allow for interacting with the world to some extent, building a business say, will take away something else, like family.

We love the idea of being able to stab one button for happiness over and over forever, it's such a simple answer. We make heroic characters that're driven, nobly focused on their one goal. Most of my characters are that way, it's cathartic, and I admire focus... but in the end, they can survive on their one pellet, satisfied with a caricature of a relationship or hobby, free from any constraint or responsibility for anything else. I don't think the majority of people can, though I imagine corporations would love such drones.