I did macro photography for a while by flipping my tele lens and holding it up to the mount the wrong way.

Hey, nobody would have questioned the worse quality cameras that astrophotographers were doing this with 20 years ago. Even though it’s your phone now, it counts!

Strap your phone to a telescope?

So it’s a tele-phone?

Wait a min…

Phones are arguably some of the most powerful consumer cameras ever built. That Nikon or Canon might have more funny buttons and settings, but your phone camera is pretty powerful on its own.

The best part of learning astrophotography is not so much in taking awesome pictures … it’s the excuse to spend hours and hours sitting outside in the dark and staring up the night sky every night. To me the pictures are a bonus.

It took me about 7 years to be good at my trade. I was really bad. It did not come easily. It was a nightmare, and seeing guys with less experience than me pick it up way faster than me was demolishing for my self esteem. But I kept at it, decided I was in too deep to quit and I liked it, picked up way more hours and held my head above water. Now I’m the best carpenter I know and own my own contracting company.

It sucks being a slow learner, but if you want it bad enough you can have it man.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about hobby based trade shows, it’s that the highly experienced, obsessed, informed people in obscure hobbies tend to want to spread their knowledge.

Don’t obsess over not knowing… put yourself out there and talk to people and get them to tell you what they find exciting. They will unload knowledge on you and be excited to do so.

Amateur’s etymology is “amator” meaning lover. It’s ok to be an amateur. It shows you’re enjoying yourself and interested. You don’t need to be the best, just do what is fun to you. Life’s too short to be a jack of all trades professional.

People struggle to put themselves out there as amateurs because of this feeling, but it’s totally fine. Most hobbies wouldn’t exist without a range of enthusiasts and skills.

Like, I’ve been pretty into chess for the past couple of years, but I’m still barely “intermediate” at best. Browsing forums and stuff, it seems like everyone is a top 1% player, but that’s mathematically impossible.

Career software developer - Years and years ago I stopped reading programming manuals and trying to remember the syntax of languages. I just google the same basic things over and over, and often paste & edit example code.

Yeah, I agree. It’s not like I disagree with any of the specific points made in the post, but when you put it together it seems very, idk, complacent? Sure, not everything needs to be a challenge, but I also think it’s important to challenge yourself in some things.

Like you alluded to, it means that you’ll fail from time to time, but to me that’s better than never succeeding. Failure is more of an achievement than not trying at all.

I don’t disagree but we’re talking in terms of a hobby, I have things I want to improve (chess, game dev) and things I don’t care about (baking, guitar, doodling ) the latter are honestly just time fills when my brain needs something that isn’t stressful or challenging.

Another way of looking at it is do things even if you don’t have talent in the area. Im one of those folks that are not a very good doer but while this means I generally just can’t make that fantastic meal that impressives everyone or draw something that approaches reality or really do anything which does not utilize known measurements and timings ; I can do them well enough that it will do. So I can make a decent tasting meal or draw something interesting or write a poem with meaningfulness to me.

Sometimes we might not do a great job because we didn’t know what we were doing and other times we were geniuses because we had messed up so many times before that we finally figured out how to do it right.

As I grow older, I find this is how you become an ‘expert’. You start not knowing how to do it, then you figure out all the wrong ways to do it by doing it wrong. Eventually, when you have messed it up in more ways than anyone else you know which paths not to take and you are then the expert.

This is exactly how I got good at maintaining/using computers! I had this old Dell Optiplex gxb with just a Pentium 2 or 3 and 4gb of memory. We lived out in the country and this computer was my only real connection to the rest of the world, so I had to make damn sure not to break it! In fact, I had to fix it several times! I can’t tell you how nervous I got putting the mobo in the oven, but it worked! HDD in the freezer? Welp, it worked! I wondered if I might have to put the mouse in a toaster at that point.

Anywho, I think it’s the mentality that gets us more than the reality of the conditions. When you gotta be careful, you’re gonna be.

I can’t even imagine how you manged to learn all that while being poor

I learned carpentry, plumbing, electrical, mechanics, welding, metal working, landscaping, operating machinery, small engine mechanics, boat building / repairing, hunting, trapping, camping, survival

What a skill set! I’m impressed.

Stopping half assing at hobbies is just a form of half assing. Those us that are serious about half passing go way beyond hobbies.

That’s how I used to play guitar, too. I got a cheapo sound pedal with a bunch of effects and premade back beats. Try to play some songs that I know. Sound bad. Keep doing it until I get bored or it sounds kinda cool once. That’s enough for the week.

Am I ever gonna be anywhere close to decent? Nope. Do I care? Nope.