A grand moral game

It seems like the easiest way to learn something as by getting good at it while not really trying to get good at it.  To make the otherwise dull practice part of an enjoyable habit, rather than to try by sheer force of will to learn and improve.

The things I think that I can sort of do came through that.  I learned to draw as a child by tirelessly copying Garfield and Asterix cartoons as a hobby - an activity I'd now find tiresome within seconds.  Later, I learned to play the piano by ear (to some extent) by having nighttime access to a dark room with a keyboard throughout a period of particular melancholy, during which having anything other than words with which I could clumsily express emotions felt like a welcome relief, no matter how imperfect the sound.  I have a suspicion that talented people are those who persisted with an activity despite sucking at it for a long time; and kids learn better in part because they are less aware of how rubbish they are at the beginning.

My skills also reached their limits for related reasons.  I have seen no clear improvements in drawing abilities in 10 years (but rather regressions in a technical wielding of dip pens and the like), because around that time it became a commitment and duty instead of a pleasure.  More recent attempts to read musical notes, or to even just get my miserable fingers to dance a cheery jig over any musical instrument, have similarly been doomed to gloomy failure - with melancholy remaining the only feeling I can musically express, and even that only in limited terms.  Various other aspects of life have involved similar rapid progress, followed by abrupt halts whenever I set about consciously improving them.  Cultivating the desire to do things that are incidentally beneficial seems like a more effective way to progress than to sporadically embark upon grand attempts at direct self-betterment.

Which reminds me of an article I read about a few weeks ago.  Habit Judo is an intriguing way to try to harness the power of this, by assigning random points for doing useful things.  More generally, gamification involves applying a game-playing sort of dynamic (with rewards etc.) to things that are not normally considered game-like, thereby making them somehow more addictive.  An idea that causes both a feeling of abject despair at the state of our collectively addled intellects, along with a scrambling to download the Habit Judo iPod app to try it out.

In any case, I find the idea of considering life as more game-like appealing.  Especially because it would be a game in which, within some constraints, we can each pick our own rules and scoring systems to keep track of how well we are doing.  To view life in such a way needn't be to trivialize anything, but rather it is simply one possible path to the minor revelation that current modes of existence needn't be fixed: there's no particular need to chase the same goal as others, and success defined in terms we find meaningful might matter more than success that would be recognised by others as such.  The feeling of being confronted by such overwhelming possibility is bewildering and scary, but also, at least in some non-trivial way, fun.

While money might be one way of keeping score in the game, it's obviously not the only one.  The purpose of this blog is, in a sense, to figure out how I want to score mine.  The starting point is that I want to go in an ethical direction, where being better really involved being better.  But this is played out against a backdrop of complex realities, limited insight, and a mistake-riddled past - and my only choice of role-playing character is the decidedly flawed one I've nurtured and neglected over the past 29 years.  Nevertheless, at least that all adds to the intrigue.  I make no presumption that I shall be any good at even playing by my own rules, but just knowing what they are would be a start.  Then I might begin the process of considering how to achieve more by conning my lazy, apathetic, selfish self into developing habits and attitudes that get me where I want to go, without it necessarily feeling like a massive, painful effort.  Outwitting myself, as it were.

The boundlessness of the game, and the impossibility of an ultimate victory, is as intimidating as it is inspiring.  An infinity of possibilities abide in each moment, and an infinity are lost.  An infinity of those possibilities were worse than the one that was ultimately realised, but a similar infinity were better.  And this will always be so.  There is forever room for expansion.  In this regard, the world feels a tragic place - yet one full of so much opportunity that one could, if one were so inclined, expend all one's creative time and energy in the most fulfilling conceivable pursuit of making even tiny bits of it feel less tragic.  That might be worthwhile.  Even the thought of trying can be enough to add some meaning to existence.