First of all, thank you to everyone for the thoughtful responses - I read each one, and am still thinking them over. A lot of good stuff though to be sure.
By way of my own response and answering a few of the questions:
jlt wrote:
1) Why do you think some hobbies benefit your life more than others?
2) Why do you think that reaching high-dan should be your objective if you tried hard? Many people say they would be satisfied with reaching 1 dan.
And why do you think that you are too old? Bill Spight wrote on this forum [...]
1) I'm not sure what to make of that question - hobbies that are not the same would have different results in one's life, and therefore some would benefit my life more than others. Perhaps I'm missing something. At the very least it would seem that different hobbies would provide
different benefits, and some benefits would be greater than others, right?
2) I should clarify that my objective would be to get as strong as I reasonably could (without the rest of my life falling apart). I mentioned high-dan because that is the most I could hope for, but if it turns out that I can't get past 3 dan, or 5 kyu, or heck even 10 kyu, then so be it - but at least I'd have tried.
And several of you mentioned the age thing: thank you for linking that anecdote from Bill Spight, and to RobertJasiek for sharing your own journey - those were both encouraging. As for why I thought I was too old - I think it was me conflating two things. Virtually all professional Go players started before the age of 10. That said, I have no delusions of being a professional, and there are exponentially more high-dan amateurs than there are professionals, as could be said with low-dan VS high-dan and so forth. It would stand to reason then, that one doesn't have to start playing go before they could walk in order to be a strong amateur - I'll try to keep that in mind.
Bill Spight wrote:
One question, which you do not need to answer. Have you ever enjoyed playing any game casually? If so, you can recover than enjoyment.
Yes, yes I have. But this got me thinking about how I was able to do that, and I realized a common theme. The games I was able to enjoy playing casually had no formal rating system. That isn't even to say that I didn't take them seriously, or that they were not a competitive outlet - I was simply more focused on improving, period, rather than achieving X rank. Go servers do tend to constantly remind us of our rank, but a couple of you did suggest playing on multiple servers - and even multiple accounts on those servers to combat rating obsession. That seems quite reasonable.
RobertJasiek wrote:
I started Go seriously when about 21 and became 5 dan within 8 eight years. That said, I did invest up to 16 hours per day. You are right to expect a very high investment of time to reach high dan. However, reaching 1 dan needs only ca. 1/8 of the effort for reaching 5 dan. In comparison to reaching 1 dan, reaching 9 kyu is almost effort-less, relatively speaking.
Thank you for sharing this, I haven't seen it put in perspective quite like that. It is entirely possible that if/when I reach 1 dan that improvement won't have quite the same pull. In the meantime though, on to 9 kyu; it's an almost effortless journey after all - how hard can that be?
Kirby wrote:
When you ask what you should do, that really depends on what you want. I heard a quote the other day, which was something to the effect of, "If you kind of want something, you'll make excuses. If you really want it, you'll get it done." I'd recommend that you do what you really want to do, whatever that may be - perhaps the option that'd give you the least regret in another 10 or 15 years?
That's a really good quote - so much so that I looked up the source,
"If you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse." - Jim Rohn
Needless to say, I've been finding more excuses than ways recently. In fact, I'm going to steal that quote for my signature here - hopefully you don't mind Kirby.
gowan wrote:
Do you attach your self-worth to how well you play go? People who do this usually end up not playing because they can't tolerate losing. What is it that makes the game enjoyable? Can you just focus on the enjoyment and not on how high a rank you might achieve? Don't focus on winning but just on enjoyment. Set smaller goals e.g. reaching single digit kyu level, and when you reach that then set another goal such as 5k or better.
Some solid questions here. I wouldn't say that I have difficulty tolerating losing (at least not more than normal), I have more difficulty tolerating stagnation, and feeling like I'm not getting any better - one of the things that spurred me to make this thread. I'm plenty happy to lose if I think I'll be better for it next time.
As for what makes the game enjoyable - I'm starting to realize that it is steady improvement - not winning exactly. Where I seem to get into trouble is tying improvement to objective ranks, although that may be one of the biggest motivators long-term. Somehow I have to learn to enjoy seeing the improvement without holding myself to some future number goal. And that's despite the fact that the numbers are just sitting there, begging to be turned into goals.
Knotwilg wrote:
The problem with that is that what you enjoy doing, won't usually get you where your ambitions lie. This leads to frustration. There are 3 ways of dealing with this:
- lower your ambitions so that they coincide with where you are likely to end up by doing what you enjoy (few people give up on their ambitions right away)
- start doing the things that are necessary to achieve your ambitions (some people do this, but if they don't enjoy that, or don't get positive feedback - read: rank boost - soon enough, they give up
- keep your ambitions, keep doing what you enjoy, and stay frustrated (most people do this)
That's my situation in a nutshell. I suspect my solution is somewhere between the first and second suggestions, but only time will tell, if that.
BlindGroup wrote:
I do know this: Even you can't know until you try it. Take a few months and do the things that you think you need to do to take the game seriously. Then revisit the question.
That seems very reasonable, and if it turns out that I don't enjoy it, it would hopefully be a simple task to dial back practice time, and focus on what I enjoy most for the long haul.
Thank you again to you all for your thoughts, they've been most helpful. I'll certainly continue reading replies if there are any more, and responding as needed, but you've given me plenty to think about already, and I appreciate it.