I am a pretty serious chess player and among other things, chess gave me a clearer perception of the direct cost in time and effort involved in succeeding at any given pursuit. You can look at any chess player’s tournament history and watch as they convert time spent into improved ability at an increasingly steep rate.
As a result, I can confidently think things like “I could possibly become a grandmaster, but I would have to dedicate my life to it for ten or twenty years as a full-time job, and that’s not worth it to me. On the other hand, I could probably become a national master with several more years of moderate work in evenings and weekends, and that sounds appealing.” and I now think of my skill in other fields in similar terms. As a result, I am less inclined to, e.g. randomly decide that I want to become a Linux kernel wizard, or learn a foreign language, or learn to draw really well, because I clearly perceive that those actions have a quite substantial cost.
There is something here along the lines of “becoming skilled at a thing helps you better understand the appeal (and costs) of being skilled at other things”. It’s definitely not the only thing you need because I’ve been highly skilled at improv piano, but still desired these other things.
What I want to point out in the post is the disconnect between becoming highly skilled and what you actually value. It’s like eating food because it’s popular as opposed to actually tasting it and seeing if you like that taste (there was an old story here on LW about this, I think).
Making the cost explicit does help (“it would take decades to become a grandmaster”), but there can be a lack of feedback on why becoming a national master sounds appealing to you. Like the idea of being [cool title] sounds appealing, but is the actual, visceral, moment-to-moment experience of it undeniably enjoyable to you? (in this case, you can only give an educated guess until you become it, but an educated guess can be good enough!)
I am a pretty serious chess player and among other things, chess gave me a clearer perception of the direct cost in time and effort involved in succeeding at any given pursuit. You can look at any chess player’s tournament history and watch as they convert time spent into improved ability at an increasingly steep rate.
As a result, I can confidently think things like “I could possibly become a grandmaster, but I would have to dedicate my life to it for ten or twenty years as a full-time job, and that’s not worth it to me. On the other hand, I could probably become a national master with several more years of moderate work in evenings and weekends, and that sounds appealing.” and I now think of my skill in other fields in similar terms. As a result, I am less inclined to, e.g. randomly decide that I want to become a Linux kernel wizard, or learn a foreign language, or learn to draw really well, because I clearly perceive that those actions have a quite substantial cost.
There is something here along the lines of “becoming skilled at a thing helps you better understand the appeal (and costs) of being skilled at other things”. It’s definitely not the only thing you need because I’ve been highly skilled at improv piano, but still desired these other things.
What I want to point out in the post is the disconnect between becoming highly skilled and what you actually value. It’s like eating food because it’s popular as opposed to actually tasting it and seeing if you like that taste (there was an old story here on LW about this, I think).
Making the cost explicit does help (“it would take decades to become a grandmaster”), but there can be a lack of feedback on why becoming a national master sounds appealing to you. Like the idea of being [cool title] sounds appealing, but is the actual, visceral, moment-to-moment experience of it undeniably enjoyable to you? (in this case, you can only give an educated guess until you become it, but an educated guess can be good enough!)