I have been looking at the many art forms I have participated in to tally how much more work I need to do to become an expert at my passions. The results are quite interesting.
1. Comic Book Drawing: 2005-2007 (10 hours/wk) = 1,040 hours
2. Painting: 1996-1998 (15 hrs/wk = 1,560 hours); 1998-2001 (312 hours); 2001-2003 (300 hours); 2003-2008 (624 hours) = 2,796 hours
3. Writing: 2001-2003 ( 5 hrs/day = 3,650 hours); 2003-2005 (25 hours/wk = 2,600 hours); 2005-2008 (5 hours/wk = 780 hours) = 7,030 hours
4. Music: 1994-1996 (30 hrs/wk = 3,120 hours); 1996-1999 (1,000 hours); 1999-2001 (15 hours/wk = 1,560 hours); 2001-2003 (150 hours); 2003-2005 (100 hours); 2005-2008 (1,000 hours) = 6,930 hours
5. TV Producing: 2005-2007 (40 hrs/wk = 4, 160 hours) = 4, 160 hours
6. Meditation: 1976-2001 (5 hours); 2001-2003 (10 hours); 2003-2005 (5 hours); 2005-2006(5 hours); 2006-2008 (90 hours) = 115 hours
7. Tennis: 1990-1994 (10 hrs/wk = 2,080 hours); 1994-2007 (300 hours); 2008 (150 hours) = 2,530 hours
8. Teaching: 2000-2001 (Taught gym for a year = 2,184 hours); 2004 (Taught Creative Arts for six months = 1,080 hours); 2003 (Taught Creative Writing for one semester at Naropa = 48 hours); 2005-2007 (Private tutor for about four hours a week = 416 hours); 2007-2008 (Taught ESL at 30 hours/wk = 1,560 hours); 2008-2009 (Taught ESL at Yonsei University = 1,000 hours); 2007-2009 (Taught Composition online at 10 hours/wk = 1,040 hours) = 7, 328 hours
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Now that I am doing 20 minutes a day of meditation each morning - about 2.5 hours a week - it will take me 90 years to reach mastery (1/3 of an hour x 365 x 90 = 10, 950 hours). I think I need to up the ante to one hour per day, which would make me reach mastery in 30 years (1 hour of meditation x 365 days x 30 = 10, 950 hours).
If I do two hours of writing practice per day, it will take me 4 years to achieve mastery (2 x 365 x 4 = 2,920 hours + 7,030 = 9,950 hours).
If I do one hour of painting practice per day, it will take me 20 years to become an expert.
If I practice music for one hour a day, it will take me ten years to become an expert.
Looking at my next year, I need to raise so much money to be able to live. I would say about $3,500-4,000/month. This will require working about 35-40 hours/week. If I work online, I can have more time to become an expert at different things.
In order to become an expert at writing, I could concentrate solely on that exercise...there are 168 hours in a week - of which I am sleeping about 56 of those hours, which leaves 72 hours to become an expert if I remove sleeping and work...if I remove television watching, scouring the Internet, and leave time for family, let's say two hours a day, that would leave me with 58 hours...if I subtract out eating time, that leaves me with 37 hours...if I keep eating healthy and contribute one hour of exercise each day, that leaves me with 31 hours...if I subtract out the time it takes me to transport my body from place to place, I would be left with 17 hours...If I subtract out an unknown ten hours for unforeseen circumstances, such as a family event, death, or other anomaly, I would be left with 7 hours of actual writing time per week...that makes becoming an expert at writing ten years, if I sacrifice most of my free time.
If I was offered money to write - a grant or scholarship - I could attain my requisite 3,000+ hours within two years by writing five hours a day. This would require a two year writing program, where I wouldn't have to work.
I think this could be my statement of intention for a grant. It is very logical and has good reasoning.
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Conclusions: Becoming a bum and sitting on someone's couch and practicing an instrument or writing without getting a job might be the only way for people without a lot of money - trust funds and shit - to actually become an expert at what they do. Next time you criticize your friend for not getting a company job that sucks the life out of them, or doing some menial labor that gives them a small paycheck, but lots of free time to contribute to becoming a master at something, take the time to realize that they just might be doing pretty well in three or four years, once they reach that 10,000 hours benchmark.
If you are a parent, and have reached this post by mistake, but have become fascinated with the possibilities of what this means for you or your children, be sure to encourage your child's passions and offer them as much practice time at their passions to insure that they will be a success at what they do.
If you are already a master at one of my passions above, please e-mail me a lesson.
The Desert Rose
5 comments:
Really liked reading this. Writing is a trick. Kerouac talked in words. What was the number? 200,000? 500,000? I think I would talk in years of intense effort. For example, if you lived to be 10,000 years old and spent one hour a year doing something, you would not become an expert in that.
Could be. But does 100,000 words on amphetamines count if a writer cannot remember writing them? ; )
I would say you have an excellent point. Does it have to be consistent? I would say one would definitely roll back the hours a bit if someone stayed away from intense study for long periods of time, but like a tennis player with a rusty backhand, it would only take a couple weeks on the court for it to start ripping again.
One could take the argument further and comment how different art forms may inform one another making it possible for one to become an expert in a much faster fashion than one realizes. For example, I spent four solid years singing day and night. I became an excellent vocalist, but, in the process, I became a songwriter. I didn't know it then, but learning one thing taught me another. I simply had to practice an instrument. Once I could manipulate chords to my voice, I could create songs relying heavily on my voice (the expert) to pull the music into an expert-like location. Over time, as the ability to play an instrument grew, I could rely more on the instrumentation to carry the songwriting process, until there was no real signifying indicator between voice and instrument.
Now with writing there may be a hundred byways and splits upon what one would call study upon prose, poetry, and the multifarious ins and outs that lie between, over, and around them. If one spends three hours on poetry would that be given over to prose? Could we say they effect one another?
I think they do without question. We can also say that playing form one arena to another can help one make certain leaps that may not be possible if an artist stayed within one art form if stagnation had erupted. Play between boundaries can only expand possibilities within art, as is exemplified by the countless experts who have used other art forms to bring more light or angles to their field of expertise i.e. John Lennon, Jerry Garcia, Yoko Ono, Miles Davis, Pablo Picasso, etc.
On a tangent that might taste like a tangerine, I heard a fellow musician say that if a person spent 10,000 hours learning Chopsticks, then they would only be an expert at Chopsticks. Therefore, one could assume that to be an expert - at more than just Chopsticks - would require 10,000 hours of intense study with experimentation, challenges, and continual inventions to push an artist past his or her chopstick limitations. Who knows? Maybe we need to pass out forks and spoons. : )
I heard a tale about Picasso, not sure if it actually happened but its a nice story. He was in a restaurant one day and a lady recognised him and asked if he would draw her a little something, since he was such a brilliant artist. He grabbed a napkin or something handy and did a quick portrait for her then, as he gave it to her, said like "that will be $200". She was shocked "but it only took a few moments for you to draw it". "No it didnt" he replied, "that took me a lifetime to create".
It's great to see someone who plans to put 10,000 hours in order to become an expert in an area (or should I say area's') I'm devoting my life to become an expert in singing and just started to blog about it. Just leaving this comment because I felt that I'm not alone out there to reach that magic 10000 hours.
It took none other than the Buddha seven years to reach enlightenment, an expert on truth perhaps. If he spent 4/hrs a day working at it, meditating or what have you, that would be 10k hours - of intense effort.
Ajan Chah, a Thai Buddhist master, uses the analogy of rubbing two pieces of bamboo together to create a fire. If you don't 'keep at it', the bamboo gets cold again, and you're starting over at the beginning, regardless of how many attempts.
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