My friend Eric Princen wrote this about chess, and it resonated with me about kayak rolling...
"Chess makes me feel stupid. That's rare. I have a pretty good idea where I am on the intellectual curve. I'm happy with the position, yet not particularly proud. I'm in the "useful" area. Chess destroys all comfort that that knowing brings. I completely understand that it's a practice thing. Hours on the board greatly improve your automatic insights. I don't put in the time, so I should not expect the results. That's usually what takes me out every time I start playing. My expectations don't line up with reality. And that's normal. Noticing it may not be if you are firmly planted in Dunning Kruger. It's only been recently through being a dad where I've come to terms with the idea that you are ALWAYS bad at things in the beginning, and the ONLY way you get better is by not quitting. The mind is a pattern matching compression algorithm. You have to tweak the weights and biases to train the meat machine, and the only way to do that is practice. That's it. The more you do, the better you get. You can optimize your learning procedure, but you still have to do it. When you are older, you have to push though the idea that you "should be better" than you actually are. You have to abandon all expectation of where you should be if you want to ever have a chance of getting there. Embrace where you suck. Hug it. Its your best friend. The gap is where the growth happens. Man, that can be hard. I don't like doing anything badly, and I'm clear it keeps joy out of my life. I've spent a lot of time in the knowledge realm, and it's beginning to actuate into wisdom. It's about freaking time."
