unfortunately the only solution to this that I’ve found (besides properly medicating yourself in cases of physiological barriers, of course) is being willing to be very bad at something for a while until suddenly you realize “wait I’m way more put-together on this than the average person???” and then it becomes a bit more fun because it makes you feel like you have a strength.

The other unfortunate thing is that you are going to have to clock whether or not a hobby will be fulfilling for you, like, six months or more of regularized investment before you actually start seeing signs of it. You aren’t exactly going to know, and sometimes it just won’t work out despite your time and effort. just how it is.

In my case, it really helped me to view the tedium as goal-oriented; I want to make a game, so I’m going to learn what I need to make a game.

Almost four years ago I was absolutely dreading the idea of being responsible for the music because I felt like I was genuinely dogshit at composition in a way that was irreparable. Late 2021 I pushed myself into trying it despite that. This semester I was personally recommended by a previous professor of mine to be in a more exclusive composition workshop with a visiting prof. In January 2022 I was making shit like this. Less than six months later I made this. Another six months, made this. this week, here’s a rough snippet I whipped up wholesale in 30 minutes over lunch with a sandwich in my free hand. This isn’t religious devotion to the hobby, this is like spending a couple hours a week tinkering for like a year and then afterwards being just sporadic enough to not get totally rusty.

As I’ve seen it put, the time will pass anyway, and I used it to turn something that was fundamentally embarrassing for me in a way that I was bargaining to get it off my plate into something that makes me feel happy about myself. The primary question of a hobby is always “does this make you happy,” you’re not going to find out until you’re knee-deep in it. The investment is daunting–my executive functioning is shot, so I totally get it. Sometimes you’re hooked, sometimes you gotta get in the mud with it until you understand it.

sorry if this is sorta grandstandy, I just kinda had almost the same thought process about this all a bit ago and it took a while of wading through the muck for me to finally have it click for me. hope it all works out for you,