When I was seven, my grandma decided I was going to be a pianist. For the next twelve years, I sat through weekly piano lessons, despite a complete absence of enthusiasm for the instrument. Long after my grandma informed me that I was not, in fact, going to be a pianist, but rather a lawyer, I carried on these lessons. My goal was not enjoyment, but that treasure of infinitely greater value: a grade eight certificate.
What teenage me didn’t understand was the value of putting time and effort into something non-productive, purely for the sheer joy of it. I’ve heard people complaining that they don’t know how to relax, and the advice given in response is always that they’re lacking hobbies, that if they pick up a new interest their free time will become fulfilling and restorative. However, I think that what this fails to acknowledge is that it’s not simply a case of acquiring any old hobby. Our aim should be to find a genuine source of enjoyment, rather than a new avenue through which to seek validation.
We’re well into August now, the summer vacation stretching out both behind and ahead of us. While you’ve got a bit of time on your hands (Michaelmas pre-reading is a September problem), this is the perfect opportunity to ditch productivity and perfectionism, and instead, embrace the art of being an amateur.
Amateur, a word often used as an insult, comes from the Latin verb amare, meaning ‘to love’. ‘Amateur’ in its modern form stems from the French word for ‘one who loves’. To be an amateur in the literal sense, therefore, isn’t about an absence of skill, or experience, but rather doing something for the sake of passion, and without profit.
So what might doing something just for the love of it look like? This is an impossible question – the answer will look different for everyone, and will vary across different phases of your life. But the central idea is that whatever you’re doing, you’re not doing it for the sake of gaining something else. You might learn an instrument without taking graded exams, or maybe you want to write terrible notes app poetry that you will never show to anyone. Or perhaps what really calls your name is turning bottle corks into life-size models of the wildlife of the West Midlands. It doesn’t need to make sense to anyone but you.
If there’s one thing we’re all familiar with as Oxford students, it’s the constant pressure to be ‘LinkedIn warriors’ and build up an impressive array of things to put on a CV. It seems even the much-coveted summer internship isn’t enough – you also need a hobby with tangible achievements that confirm your status as a strategic, results-driven team player. Activities that boost your employability are undoubtedly important, but they are not a substitute for doing the things you truly love.
Around the time my grandma accepted that I was not destined for piano greatness, I joined a choir. I would love to tell you I joined purely for the love of it, but this would be a lie – I joined because my older sister had. However, after the first couple of months, I found myself hooked. The feeling of hitting that high note, perfecting that one impossible harmony, was a far cry from anything I’d felt playing the piano. I didn’t take singing exams, I never went for solos. And of all the hobbies I’ve taken up in my life, choir is the one I always return to.
Let’s be honest, how many of us genuinely make an effort to try new things on a regular basis? It’s intimidating – it involves accepting that you will not be good at something, that the most you can hope for is ‘good for a beginner’, which is never much of a compliment. Perfectionism is not an easy thing to kick. And though it can be useful in many situations, it can also be very effective in holding you back for fear of failure. This is where the amateur thesis comes in. If you are doing something for the love of it, then the act of doing is enough. It doesn’t need to be perfect, so there’s really no way to fail.
I think we can all agree that our culture is obsessed with productivity. Many of us now find the idea of doing nothing far from relaxing, and it’s sometimes even downright uncomfortable. With weekly essay deadlines, and a constant sense that you’ve forgotten something, the fear of time wasted creeps into every part of life at Oxford. Is it any wonder that committing time to being an amateur isn’t something that comes naturally to us? Maybe this speaks to a wider issue: a disinclination to see our own immediate happiness as a valid goal.
Through building up hobbies that give us joy rather than measurable achievement, we cultivate self-validation. As human beings, we are very good at outsourcing our need for validation. This is especially true in the age of social media, where you can build an image of the great life you’re leading, regardless of whether or not it’s true to reality. What if we tried to practice self-validation instead? What if your joy was an end in itself, regardless of whether or not other people knew, understood, or were impressed? By treating our own independent interests as something valuable, without seeking external confirmation of that value, we are, in turn, treating ourselves as worthy of effort. In our pursuit of confidence and self-esteem, this is surely a crucial practice.
My grandma and grandad were two very different people. While my grandma was the kind of person who’d lovingly (but firmly) encourage me to chase the validation of the music examination board, my grandad was never happier than when he was with his beloved pigeons. He had names for the clans (what he called the different colours and patterns), and no one was allowed to feed them but him. No one else understood, and no one else had to. He was an amateur pigeon-feeder, doing it purely for the love of it.
