Pooh-Bah Post: Get A Life!

[Cry Me A River]

Get a hobby!

No, wait, hear me out! I'm serious here! This post is going to contain some very practical advice that will yield results very quickly.


This is going to be geared more towards full time players rather than part-timers. Part-timers are a lot less likely to face the kinds of burnout and perma-tilt problems of full time players but there still will be some benefit here to part-timers. It's just not as critical for you guys. You already have plenty of distractions outside poker.

I don't want to get all Zen on you guys, but, you need some balance in your lives. If all you do is sit in your basement all day, playing poker and surfing the net you WILL burn out. It's simply a matter of when. Workaholics in all fields face this problem and in poker your mental state is absolutely critical to your success. And of course your success affects your mental state. Spiral!

Get yourself a woman (or man, YMMV), a pet, get some exercise, have some fun.

And,

Get a hobby!


There are basically three types of hobbies:

Making things, collecting things and playing with things.

There's no reason you can't have multiple hobbies, however, I'm going to emphasize making things.


Okay, I promissed you this would be practical, this is where it happens!

We want a hobby that will meet the following goals:

- Will result in a tangiable reward. As poker players we do not leave a mark on the universe, except in our opponent's wallets. There is immense satisfaction in creating something new. Particularly something showy that we can impress other people with. This is why I've avoided collecting things and playing with things (which includes all sports) in this post. Not that you can't do those as well, but I want you have have something you can point at and say "I did this!"

- We can pick it up and put it down quickly. So not a lot of prep time or clean-up is best. We want to be able to work on it during our breaks. This is a much more efficient form of break than watching tv or playing a video game. You don't have to work on it during all your breaks, you can still play Counterstrike or go watch a DVD sometimes, but, you're going to find that when you get pissed off after a couple bad beats nothing calms you down and centers you like taking a twenty minute break and working on your project.

- The actual techniques should be relatively banal and repetitive. Our goal here is to enter into a meditative-like state while we are working on our projects. We want a craft that is relatively simple to do, but at the same requiring our concentration and focus. Our brains are incredibly trainable when it comes to boring, repetitive tasks. That's how people manage to work in factories all day without going insane. Or in fields tending crops for generations. We want to co-opt this mechanism, however, instead of standing at an assembly line all day, we want to do something a little more rewarding.

- Cheap is good! You want your costs to come from labour, not materials. You don't want to be buying your hobby, you want to make it. And unless you're really, really sure you're going to love it, don't dump a bunch of money into equipment you might not use anymore in six months.


You're not going to see results immediately, you're going to need to put in enough hours to get a little bit proficient. So that your brain will switch to "standby mode" while you are working on your hobby. Once you get yourself "trained" there's nothing like picking up your work to wind down and take your mind completely off poker. Particularly at the end of the day! Instead of lying in bed for an hour stewing over that last AA hand, work on your project for a little while. Poof! Gone!


I do have a hobby of my own. It's relatively obscure and it's unlikely any of you guys are going to want to pick it up - I hook rugs. No, I'm not going to post any images of my work. I'm working towards a gallery show (and website) sometime late this year or early next year, once I have enough pieces. Until then, I'm keeping things strictly under wraps.


However, I will suggest a hobby for you guys to try out:


Origami

You can start out cheap and easy, just grab some paper out of your printer and get some plans from some origami websites. There's tonnes of simple patterns you can do, it's very repetitive, but at the same time you have to pay attention and concentrate because one bad fold will completely mess you up.

And eventually, you can build unbelievably complex models. Here's an example of the extreme (models that take 12+ hours to make!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1UsZZb72-c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49b1bWb4C04

(Japanese audio - doesn't matter)


You can just Google "origami" and get started right away,

General Origami, lots of models:
http://www.origami.com/

but here are some unconventional links for you to try:

Mathematical origami (complex polyhedrons)
http://www.ozonehouse.com/john/origami/
http://jimvb.home.mindspring.com/polyhedra.htm
http://www.merrimack.edu/%7Ethull/phzig/phzig.html
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~plank/plank/p...i/origami.html


Also closely related to Origami is Papercraft:

Papercraft Arcade Video Game machines:
http://www.wayoftherodent.com/gd101/bs_paperarcade.htm

Science Fiction Paper Models:
http://www.ss42.com/pt-scifiction.html

Papercraft Batmobile:
http://www.paperinside.com/1966-batmobile

Yamaha Papercraft:
http://www.yamaha-motor.co.jp/global...aft/index.html

Papercraft World:
http://www.papercraft-world.blogspot.com/


Obviously, there are a zillion other things you can do: carpentry and a hundred forms of woodwork including carving (also stone, etc), numerous textile arts (knitting*, sewing*, quilting*), metalworking and welding, glass making and blowing. Not to mention traditional arts like drawing and painting. Hell, build a boat in your backyard or put together a hot-rod from a kit. If none of these appeal to you, take a walk around a major art and craft show and see what people are up to.

You're likely sitting there thinking this is a little silly. Trust me, it's not! Short of taking an axe to my neighbours, I have not found a better tilt control mechanism than working on my rugs! Yeah, it's a little weird. So is playing poker for a living and I am well past caring what other people think.

And if you're sitting there thinking "I'm not handy" or "I have no artistic talent", that's bull!! We're not talking about you become some world-famous arrrtiiisTE (though if you do, that's pretty cool too!) we're talking about picking up a few simple skills that can lead to some very statifying results. Yes, to begin with you're likely going to be making some pretty basic, even crappy things. Have some patience with it, you will be rewarded!




*Hey, if chicks can play poker, men can knit and sew!

[sayuncle]

i prefer origami boulders:

http://origamiboulder.com/

[futuredoc85]

this is a very very good post OP

[CarlSpackler]

Another option could be doing some sort of volunteer/charitable work. This is also a good way to meet girls.

[capodu]

[ QUOTE ]
Another option could be doing some sort of volunteer/charitable work. This is also a good way to meet girls.

[/ QUOTE ]

Every girl likes the guy that helps old people [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

BTW, another good post my man, very very true.

[Cry Me A River]

[ QUOTE ]

Another option could be doing some sort of volunteer/charitable work. This is also a good way to meet girls.

[/ QUOTE ]

Excellent idea, however, a big part of my point is to have something compelling and engrossing to do during your breaks that triggers your brain's "off" switch and as a "cool down" at the end of the day. (Obv, your brain is not really off, but, your conscious thought process gets turned off (or at least severely muted) once you have yourself "trained" to focus on the task at hand).

For example, let's say you're planning to play an evening of poker. Say from 6pm to 11pm and then hit the sack.

For me, the ideal schedule for this would be to play from about 6pm to 8pm, take a break and work on a project. Then get back to playing around 8:20 or 8:30. Then call it quits at about 10:30, work on a rug for a while and then head off to bed. If I'm having a really good day, maybe skip the "cool down" and work straight through.

You can't really take off to the soup kitchen for half an hour at a time...

[Berge20]

nh

[Cry Me A River]

Can't believe I didn't think to mention Make Magazine:

http://www.makezine.com/

And Craft Magazine:

http://www.craftzine.com/

[ottsville]

[ QUOTE ]
I do have a hobby of my own.

[/ QUOTE ]
I was expecting you were going to say knitting.

good post though

[LearningCurve]

So true and insightful. It's called "flow" and we all need to figure out a means to achieve it.

As soon as you're ready, I'll be very interested to see samples of your hobby/sanity-saver.