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

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Recently, I've decided to enjoy:
(a) My work.
(b) Spending time with my family.
(c) Being social and hanging out with people locally.

...it didn't work, though. You can't decide to enjoy things or not, or to be stressed out by things or not, or to be interested by things or not. You don't get to choose your emotions, they just happen.

[rowyn]

I think I can influence my emotions, to some degree, by controlling what I think about and how I act. It's a lot of effort, though. Sometimes when I've been depressed I've had this cycle of "I should do x to cheer myself up" followed by "no, I deserve to be miserable" and so I just sit and stew instead. O_O

But even when positive thinking works for me, it's never been as easy as "just decide that I like it". It's the sort of mental effort that's hardest to make when I need it most. And at its worst, it just makes me feel more awful for not being able to do it better. It should be easy! They're my emotions, right? Why can't I tell them what to feel? Dammit, where's my owner's manual? >:)

[level-head.livejournal.com]

You can't decide to enjoy things or not, or to be stressed out by things or not, or to be interested by things or not. You don't get to choose your emotions, they just happen.

Well, it certainly seems to be a reasonable statement. But let's try it with a fairly trivial example:

A woman named Cheri -- let's call her "Cheri" for privacy reasons -- was highly afraid of reptiles. Her problem was that she worked directly for a man who kept reptiles in a large (300 gal) tank in his office.

The fearsome-looking male Jackson's Chameleon was perhaps scary enough, but she'd never seen it. She literally ran into the office and ran out when she had to drop off a piece of paper, and could not bear to look at the tank. She was anxious and agitated and obviously unhappy just to be near the door to the room where the tank was.

A bit of education, coaching, and exposure brought gradual familiarity.

By a year later, she had volunteered to clean the tank (a weekly chore) and could be seen on the little stepladder with the chameleons perched on her shoulder while she went about tidying up their space.

The same event -- exposure to reptiles -- now produced a completely different set of emotions. Over time, she learned how to think differently about them -- and that made all the difference.

I haven't kept the reptile tank since the Northridge Earthquake flipped it over, and Cheri has moved on more than a decade ago. But the story is true enough.

And it happened to me, at age 14, with another matter -- and that's when I learned the trick I'm talking about. My life was exactly the same the day before and the day after this decades-ago moment, but because I thought differently I went from miserable to happy. And, for the first time, gained control over my life.

I've never looked back.

Just think -- if there were some element of truth in what I'm saying -- if what I've done every day for forty years was possible ];-) -- wouldn't it be worth looking into?

===|==============/ Level Head

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

You do realize that
(a) you're using the psychiatric treatment of a mental disease as your anecdote (and talking about being desensitized to stimuli, which isn't the same thing as deciding to change your emotions at all), and
(b) You sound like you're trying to recruit people into a UFO suicide cult.

Right?

Also... no. I'm not even remotely interested in the sort of thing that would make me happy to work 100 hours a week in a thankless job. I know a lot of people who were 'happy' in that sort of situation until they died of stress-related diseases, broke down, burned out, etc. Pretending to be happy, or forcing yourself to 'be happy' using willpower, is a trap that leads only to death and misery.

[rowyn]

Hi, Terrycloth. Have I introduced you to my friend Level Head? I met him online in, um, 2002? And in person in 2004. I was came out to see him for his 50th birthday party, and the 30th anniversary of his company. He's a great friend, very intelligent, well-spoken, and well-versed on a variety of subjects. He's been really helpful to me in my writing projects, unfailingly supportive and encouraging.

...

And I thought I'd point this out 'cause you may not be getting the best possible first impression, here.

[rowyn]

Hi, Level Head. Have you met my friend Terrycloth? He's a good friend, although I only know him online. I met him at the start of the +Terrible Butterflies+ game last year, where his PC and mine wound up madly in love with each other. He was one of the players in the Honored game -- he played Kite. He's an awesome roleplayer, very clever and creative. We play City of Heroes together a lot, too. I enjoy his company a great deal.

Just thought you should know.