Stop Mastering, Start Dabbling: Karen Walrond on the Joy of Being Amateur
Show Snapshot:
What if the secret to a richer life isn't mastering anything—but dabbling in everything? Author Karen Walrond (In Defense of Dabbling) returns to champion the lost art of amateurism—doing what you love without needing to excel. In a culture that turns hobbies into hustles, we can easily forget how to be interesting to ourselves. From swim class struggles to wonky candle holders, Karen shares why intentional dabbling as we age sparks joy, powers self-compassion, and stretches our comfort zones. Midlife is made for getting unstuck. What will you try just for the joy of it, beauties?
Show Links:
Follow Karen:
Karen’s Book:
In Defense of Dabbling: The Brilliance of Being a Total Amateur
Quotable:
You should stretch your comfort zone. It should be a stretch zone, as opposed to trying to get outside of your comfort zone. Test yourself gently—that's where the growth is.
Transcript:
Katie Fogarty 0:03
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women who are unafraid to age out loud. I'm your host, Katie Fogarty. Beauties, what was the last new thing you tried? Were you any good? Did you feel sheepish, embarrassed, or maybe excited, euphoric? Today we're exploring the brilliance of being a total amateur and why dabbling, not mastering, can be the key to a richer life. So set aside your perfectionist tendencies and open your ears and mind. Author and enthusiastic dabbler Karen Walrond returns to A Certain Age to open the pages of her latest book, In Defense of Dabbling, and to champion the lost art of being beautifully amateur. In a culture that turns hobbies into hustles and play into pressure, Karen invites us to embrace amateurism and do what you love without needing to excel. Because our always-on, keep-grinding life can focus so much on achieving that we forget how to be interesting, joyful, inspired, lit up. Ready to rebel against the tyranny of needing to excel? Stick around. This show is for you. Welcome back to A Certain Age.
Karen Walrond 1:12
Oh my gosh, it's so great to be here. Thank you for having me.
Katie Fogarty 1:16
I am thrilled. I love a repeat customer, and I so enjoyed this book. You were first on A Certain Age to talk about your really wonderful, beautiful book, Radiant Rebellion, which is about the art of aging with zest and joy. This is a delightful book as well. But let's start off with some stage-setting, because we're going to be using the word "amateur" a lot. Let's center this in the conversation. What does the word "amateur" mean to you? I know one of your definitions is "one who loves." When did we lose sight of this beautiful definition, and how did hobbies become another performance metric in our lives?
Karen Walrond 1:54
You know, I don't know. I mean, the answer is I have no idea when it happened. I was actually really surprised—in a "why didn't I already know this?" kind of way—to find out that "amateur," in its original meaning, means "one who loves." So it's not my definition; it is the definition. And then somehow, sort of around the turn of the 20th century, it started being used as a pejorative. It started being used the way that a lot of times we hear it being used now: "That's such an amateur move," or "He's such an amateur." And really, there's no positive way to use it unless we're talking about sports. For some reason in sports, it's okay to be an amateur. There are even debates where you have to make the decision whether to turn pro or stay amateur—there are pros and cons. But otherwise, in sort of everyday vernacular, it's not used as a kind phrase. And so I was like, you know, that sucks, because I think it's important for us to celebrate doing things that we love to do, just for the love of doing them, not for profitability or perfection, because I think there's a lot to be gained.
Katie Fogarty 3:09
You open your book with a wonderful chapter you call "Making the Case for Intentional Amateurism." You're pushing back against a culture that says we need to make our mark in the world, to distinguish ourselves in some major way. And I actually wrote down something that you said, quote: "Shouldn't I, at my big age, have mastered something noteworthy by now?" And that made me laugh, because I think that's one of the themes of this show—getting to a certain age, kind of looking around, taking stock, figuring out where you've come from, where you're going. So walk us through what made you launch your own dabbling journey. Why did you decide to go all in on being an amateur?
Karen Walrond 3:49
Yeah, well, I start the book—I think my first line in the book is "I'm not an expert at anything." And I really believe that. I'm not an expert. I can do certain things well, but I'm not an expert at anything. And what kind of surprised me about that revelation was that I wasn't unhappy. And society tells us that we're supposed to be experts, like those "30 Under 30" lists, and you should have mastered something. And I'm like, I've got a pretty good life here. I'm pretty happy, and yet I haven't mastered things. I've done a lot, but I haven't mastered things. And so I really wanted to kind of explore that. So that was one thing.
The other thing was when I was writing Radiant Rebellion—and I will tell you, I'm one of those writers for whom writing is not natural. I forget who the author is that says, "I hate writing. I love having written," and that resonates with me deeply.
Katie Fogarty 4:46
I feel like it's—Karen, I feel that way about exercise.
Karen Walrond 4:50
Well, exactly. For me, it's a struggle—a struggle I love, but it's a struggle. And so when I was writing Radiant Rebellion, every now and then I'd get stuck. And so I would just go into my garage and pick up this beat-up hula hoop, and I would just sort of try to hoop the stress away. And occasionally, while I was hooping, I would take a selfie, and I would occasionally share that selfie online. And the reaction of people was so interesting to me, because in addition to "Oh, I'm too old to ever try that"—which was a horrifying thing to hear—I got a lot of "Oh, you're so brave," or "I would look like a fool if I tried that." And I really was intrigued by that, because one: so what if you look like a fool? Nobody has to see it. Just because I put it on Instagram doesn't mean you have to. And secondly, what's the worst that would happen? That the hula hoop would fall? I wasn't getting paid for it. There were no ramifications.
So I really wanted to kind of explore that reticence that people seem to have about doing things just for fun, or even starting something for fear of looking silly or ridiculous. And I feel like we really don't hear about people having hobbies that much anymore, not like when we were kids. My parents—I don't know about you—but my parents had a bridge club where they always played bridge. And my grandmother used to do embroidery. You don't really hear about people doing that anymore.
So I pitched the idea to my publisher, and one of the people she works with in the marketing department said something really interesting. She was a young woman, a young Black woman, and she said, "I love the idea of this book, because I feel like I have to focus on my career so much because I need to make my parents proud, and I feel like I'm representing my race, and so I need to make my people proud of me. And I'm afraid I've forgotten how to be interesting." And I thought that was the most heartbreaking thing I'd ever heard—that this person was working so hard on her career that she didn't feel interesting to herself anymore. And I think that's a really sad thing.
So I wanted to start this sort of revolution of people doing things that they love. And when I talk about intentional amateurism, I'm talking about actually creating a cadence of doing so. Dabbling is when you try everything in order to see what sticks, and then whatever that thing is that you really love, you create a cadence of coming back to it—of just doing the thing that you love to do purely for love, regularly, as a form of self-compassion and sometimes even self-transformation.
Katie Fogarty 7:33
Talk about this idea of dabbling and then building it into a cadence once you sort of identify where your energy is and where you get lit up. Because, look, to that young woman's point—you share that story in the book, and it really is a bit of a gut punch when you share it. It lands really powerfully. And to discover where we get lit up and where we derive energy requires trying new things. And so you created what I believe you called an "amateur menu." Can you walk us through that a little bit, and then how you took your menu and decided where you would build cadence and kind of focus your intentional amateurism?
Karen Walrond 8:09
Yeah, so the amateur menu is basically: I sat down with my journal—I'm a big journaler, and so I always have a journal near me, but a piece of paper will do—and I made a list of everything that I love to do and everything that I used to love to do. Because I think when we're children and we play, there are some clues in that. Maybe you used to roller skate all the time, or maybe you used to climb all the time, or whatever it is—there are clues into that. So I made a list of all of those things, and then I also added to the list things that I'd always been intrigued about. Say you go to a Renaissance Festival and you see a juggler, and you think, "Oh, that'd be cool. I should learn how to juggle." Or you've gone to a museum and there are tapestries on the wall, and you think, "Oh, I'd love to learn how to weave," or "I'd love to learn how to quilt," or whatever. And you just make a list of all of those things to do. So that's really what I did—I just sat down and made a list of everything, trying hard not to censor myself and say, "Well, that's ridiculous. You can't do that," or "That would be too hard," or "That would be too expensive," or "I wouldn't even know where to start." Get all of those gremlins away from you as you make this entire list of things that you want to do.
And so that's what I did. I will tell you—and I always sort of have to preface whenever I talk about this book—obviously I had the incentive of the fact that I was writing a book to do all of this. There was no copping out. I'd signed a contract to write a book about hobbies, so I was going to have to try this. But I would encourage people to do this anyway—just to make the list and just see what feels like, "That's really interesting. I'd really, really love to try that."
Katie Fogarty 9:57
Karen, what were some of the items on the list?
Karen Walrond 10:05
So I actually included many of them at the back of the book, along with others that just kind of came to me. Things like cake baking, macaron making, twerking was one of the things on the list, bouldering, hot air ballooning, skydiving—although you will never see me skydive—running, needlepoint. I mean, there were so many things: wine making, beer making. It was a huge list.
Katie Fogarty 10:41
It's a knockout of a list. And it's funny, I was rolling through it and thinking, "Which ones have I done? Which ones would I like to do? Where am I on my list?" And then you went and tried a lot of them. I know that you tried swimming and pottery making, and you've done so many. We're going to get into some of them. But I would love to ask: was there something where you really felt like, while you were doing this, while you were being the amateur, where you felt like you had a failure? It didn't work. And what did that teach you, or what value did that offer you in that process of being like, "Wow, this was hard"?
Karen Walrond 11:17
I mean, I did seven things, and so what I did for this book—I was really worried that because I knew people were going to be reading this, I would spiral into perfectionism. So I was really afraid. I wanted to be able to talk about the failures if and when they happened. And oh, they happened. And so what I did was I came up with sort of a scaffolding, which I call the Seven Attributes of Intentional Amateurism. And these were emotions and feelings and traits that I wanted to tap into, because I knew if I was doing that, my chances of falling into perfectionism would be mitigated. Things like curiosity and mindfulness and play and wonder and awe—things that I'm like, "If I'm staying tethered to those things, I'm less likely to be worried about failing or feeling negatively impacted about failing."
And so I'm sitting here—you asked which ones did I fail at?
Katie Fogarty 12:23
Or not fail—maybe "fail" is a really big and loaded word—but which ones did you struggle with? Or did you think to yourself...
Karen Walrond 12:29
I'll go with "fail." I think both work in this. And I would say all of them. I mean, because I was a newcomer to all of them.
Katie Fogarty 12:39
I think the pottery was really such a great case of just how you experienced it in every different way. I mean, you could say there might have been a failure or two, but you also transmuted that into something new. So share with our listeners a little bit about your experience with pottery—maybe what it taught you.
Karen Walrond 12:58
I would love to. I want to make the comment that "transmuted it into something new"—that to me is the essence of intentional amateurism, because yes, I failed at all of them, but every one of them taught me something really new about myself and about my capabilities, but also exposed me to something new—a new experience that had to be transformative because it was new to me.
So pottery—I'm glad you picked pottery, because that is the one that stuck, and that is the one of all of them that I did that I am still avidly, some might even say obsessively, doing today since writing the book. So pottery—I wanted to do pottery because I had visited as a child a potter in my home country of Trinidad. And I was a young child. I was probably five years old, five or six years old, when I went to visit this potter. And I was just transfixed. He threw on a wheel, and I thought it was amazing. And I kept thinking all my life, "I would love to try to do that," but life got in the way, and I kept thinking, "I'm too busy," and "There's too much." But I decided to take a pottery class.
And I will tell you, my background is in engineering. I'm a math-science person. And I really kind of went in feeling a little bit cocky. I don't know if I say this in the book, but it's true. I went in thinking, "It's physics. It's just centrifugal force. This is not going to be that difficult."
Katie Fogarty 14:28
You're like, "I've been trained to build bridges. I could build a pot."
Karen Walrond 14:31
Exactly. Like, exactly. "This is not going to be tough. I've seen it. It looks really easy. Most of it has to do with the force of the wheel." And obviously that was deeply not the case, and it continues to be not the case. It continues to challenge me, because in pottery—I always say pottery is an exercise in disappointment, because there are so many places in pottery that can fail. You add too much water, the clay doesn't center right. The clay goes flying off the wheel. Ask me how I know. There's always something that can go wrong with pottery.
And what was really the gift of the class that I took that I write about in the book is I had this very sort of Yoda-like teacher that was full of these really wonderful adages and things that she could tell me about pottery. So as I'm sitting there, and I've got this lump of clay in front of me, and I can literally feel while I'm failing, and I'm hoping that she doesn't notice—and she can tell me, she's like, "Nope, something happened there. You did something wrong there." And she talked about how you've just got to be calm with the clay, that clay can sort of read your feelings and your emotions, and you have to sort of listen to the clay. And this really mindful practice that comes with actually throwing clay.
So I ended up throwing something that was pretty embarrassing-looking, but I was hooked. And even though I kept failing at it, what I found is sometimes failing is really fascinating. It's really fascinating to see not just the experiment of what it is you're doing and how adjusting yourself can change the outcome, but also it's fascinating about how your emotions rise and fall as you're doing the work—especially for something that you're not getting paid for. There are no repercussions. Nobody's going to die if you fail at it. And yet you can feel your body sort of get either really upset about it, but then also maybe get curious about, "Okay, I'm going to try better," becoming more determined.
And through that lesson, I went through this rise and fall of different emotions—embarrassment, but also curiosity, but also triumph in certain ways—being able to get through that and the idea of focusing on something that you love and experiencing that curiosity in yourself as well as to what you're doing. That can be very transformative in a lot of ways. It feels very much like meditation or mindfulness. It's the idea of sort of clearing your mind of everything but what's in front of you and just focusing on that and noticing—noticing what happens with yourself and what's happening in front of you.
Katie Fogarty 17:20
With the pottery, it was such a wonderful little vignette in the book, this chapter where we see you make your first pot, and it's not quite what you wanted it to be. And then you keep on trying, and then still, sometimes they're misshapen or slightly bent, and you called them "wonky," and then decided to reframe that to "charming." And then you said, "My pots are still a little bit misshapen, but I'm going to turn them into sort of candle holders versus true pots." And it's just wonderful to see you take what you physically created, struggle with the clay, struggle with your emotions, and then wind up with a tangible object that you still had to reframe in some way. You're like, "Okay, you're going to be a candle now."
Karen Walrond 18:01
Yeah. And let's be very clear: I go to the pottery probably three or four times a week now, and it's been a year and a half since that vignette, and I still struggle. I mean, I'm better, for sure. I'm much better than I was when I did that. But there are still times when I go, "Oh my gosh, that glaze didn't work," or "Like..." There's still that learning and constant trying to be better—not trying to be perfect, but trying to be better, trying to evolve. That still is a struggle. And I think I want to be clear: I think with the book, a lot of people think, "Oh, Karen's saying it's okay to suck." I mean, it is okay to suck, but what I think is more important is it's okay to not try to be perfect. Things are going to evolve. If you keep going back to whatever you're practicing, you're going to probably get better. I don't know how you can not get better. But it's about staying detached from the outcome and being really tuned into the present moment of doing what it is you're doing, and even marveling when things go well and things go your way and you see the evolution of it. But it's not about becoming the best at it.
Katie Fogarty 19:16
Karen, I love that story. I loved learning about it, and I love the insight that you took from that experience. We're heading into a quick break, but when we come back, I want to pick up this notion of perfectionism.
[BREAK]
Karen, we're back from the break. When we went into it, we were talking about perfectionism, how that can sometimes get in the way of us having new experiences. To dabble requires trying new things. That's what's implied. For some people, it's not easy. We like our comfort zones. You raise in the book the idea of "complacency zones," though, and why this is very different. So can you walk us through the distinction between a comfort zone and a complacency zone?
Karen Walrond 19:55
Absolutely. So I love that you brought this up, and I will tell you that I did not know this difference until I started writing this book. Anytime I write a book, I'm usually wrestling with something, and so it's a learning experience for me. So the difference between a comfort zone and a complacency zone: People love to say, "You should go outside of your comfort zone. You should leave your comfort zone. Stay outside. That's how you grow." And the argument that was made to me—and I wish I could remember the researcher who I learned this from—but what she was saying was that actually, your comfort zone is wonderful. It's a great place to be. It's where you feel safe. The complacency zone is what you want to stay out of, which is that you just don't want to try anything. You don't want to do anything. You're fearful. You're fearful of pushing. You're fearful of... Well, not even fearful, because you could feel fearful for what I'm about to say, but there's still a certain safety to it.
So, for example, what she says is that you should stretch your comfort zone. It should be a "stretch zone" as opposed to trying to get outside of your comfort zone. So for example, when I write about this in the book, I write about me taking surfing lessons. Now, for some people, that's terrifying. Surfing is terrifying because the ocean is terrifying. "I'm not going to go surfing because there are sharks in the water or whatever. I could drown. I'm not a good swimmer." There are all these reasons why somebody might not do surfing.
Now, I grew up on an island. I grew up in the Caribbean. I'm also a scuba diver, so the animals in the water don't scare me. I'm not worried about them. I'm not a strong swimmer. I'm not a great swimmer at all, but I'm not afraid of the water. But surfing was still something that I was nervous about. I've never stood up on a board. Who knows what could happen? I didn't know what muscles I was going to be using. And so there was still something that was a little bit—that made me nervous. Maybe, like you said, fear is not where I was feeling, but I felt nervous, or I felt some anticipation about it that was a little uncomfortable. But I didn't feel, for example, that I was going to die. I wasn't worried about that. Bungee jumping is not something I'm ever going to do. That's so terrifying to me. It's never going to be one of my hobbies. That, to me, is outside of my comfort zone completely, and I have no desire to do that.
So the difference between comfort zone and complacency zone: complacency is you're not motivated to do anything. But staying in your comfort zone and stretching it is really where you want to be. What I like to say is that one of the attributes of intentional amateurism is the desire to just test yourself gently, is what I like to say—just see where are those edges of the comfort zone for me. Could I actually do this? Because that's where the growth is.
Katie Fogarty 22:55
I love this idea of a stretch zone, because I could see how I've used that sort of in my own life. And it does feel like it's possible, because when we tell ourselves stories like "This is too hard," or "This is too daunting," or "I'm too old," then we stop ourselves. But when we can know where we thrive and drive energy and are excited and stretch ourselves—put or push ourselves past a little bit in that same zone—it feels possible.
So this is a good sort of segue into a question I was curious about, because in your menu of intentional amateurism, you created a long list of things that you considered. Some of them you'd never done before. You just mentioned surfing. You hadn't done pottery. You had some—you resurrected old interests, like you could swim, but you wanted to push yourself further. You used to be quite adept and skilled at piano, and you sort of brought it back, and you struggled a little bit in the book, it seemed, because you had lost some of the skills that you once had. You had to engage with that practice, that hobby, in sort of a new way, from a new perspective. Was one more challenging than the other? Was one more exciting or rewarding than the other—to kind of try something new, or to pick up an old love again and kind of blow some flames underneath it?
Karen Walrond 24:19
Well, it's interesting. I hadn't really considered that swimming was something I had returned to, which you're right. Certainly I knew how to swim before I started this swimming practice. The piano one was really interesting for me, because I had played quite well as an adolescent, probably from age nine to about 16 or 17. I played a lot. I took lessons maybe for five or six years, and then I taught myself a lot, and I was pretty good at it. I wasn't great at it, but I was pretty good at it. But then, of course, decades went by, and I hadn't returned to the piano. And I wanted to explore the attribute of self-compassion, because I knew by going back to it, I was not going to be as good because I hadn't played in so long. I knew that my fingers might have minds of their own and would do things that they wanted to do. I might forget how to read music the way I used to. And so that was a really interesting one for me.
What was surprising about that was even though I got to the point where I could play a piece and play it pretty well, it wasn't as fun as I remembered. It was really interesting, because I thought, "Oh, I'm going to do this, and I'm going to be as passionate about it as I was as a kid." And I was like, "You know what? I'm good. I don't need to create this practice." And I think that's another really interesting lesson learned from this: you don't have to. If it feels like a chore, it's probably not your thing. I'm talking about returning to the thing that you can't wait to get back to. My husband is an athlete, and if he doesn't get out and exercise at least a few times a week, he becomes really cranky. It is what draws him. I feel that way about the pottery. I did not feel that way about piano. And I thought I would. I thought I would be like, "Oh, once I get my fingers back warmed up, I'm going to feel drawn to the keyboard at least every other day." And honestly, since I wrote that chapter, I have not gone back to the keyboard. It's just not been my thing. And so it's really interesting to also understand that a chore is not what I'm talking about. It should not feel like a chore. You should not be doing it because, quote, "it's good for you." These are things that you find through dabbling that you can't help but want to do. You just can't wait to get back to.
Katie Fogarty 26:38
Getting to midlife teaches us we don't have to keep reading the book past chapter two or three if it doesn't pull us in. Real life is short, and not every book is going to resonate. Not every experience is going to deliver the joy, the excitement, the sense of challenge, the sense of growth that we want when we engage with things for pleasure. So I think it's terrific that you just said, "You know, I gave it a try again—not for me today. There are other things that are out there."
You share so many stories through the book of other dabblers, people you've met along the way, people you sought out for this project. These people have embraced a range of activities: hiking, milestone journeys like the Appalachian Trail, yarn weaving, watercolor painting. Is there a particular story that really sticks in your mind that you return to again and again, or that you think about when you want to share the book with others?
Karen Walrond 27:36
Yeah, the one that—I guess the person who surprised me the most, because I didn't know that it was a thing—was the woman, her name's Marcia, who created, and I always get this pronunciation of this word wrong, "automata," where basically she creates little robots, little hand robots, and she does it with trash around her house. You would turn a crank, and something happens. So the one she showed me was she made a little dancing mermaid out of a toilet paper roll center, and you would turn a little crank and the mermaid would dance, and fish would swim around her. And it's all like these hand-motion little robots, really, that she creates. And I'm like, who would have thought that was a thing? That people do that. And she has a group that they all do it together. Some of them actually buy little pieces that are made to do what they're supposed to do. She likes to just sort of use the detritus around her house to create little robots. And it totally consumes her. She could not have been more excited to talk to me about it. And the way I found her was she had left a comment on my Substack. She said, "This is what she does." And I was like, "Oh my God, I need to meet you."
Katie Fogarty 29:01
Because incredible...
Karen Walrond 29:01
Exactly.
Katie Fogarty 29:01
So Karen, I had the reaction—and when I was reading that story, I was thinking, I wish the book came with pictures, because a lot of what your dabblers are creating are visual. And I had this—when you were describing that mermaid, I always call my daughter "our mermaid," because she is a scuba diver and a marine science researcher for a living. And I had this desire to know what that looked like when you shared it.
And another example is actually Jen Romolini, whose work I admire. I don't know her, but I know Everything Is Fine, and I've read her phenomenal memoir, Ambitious Monster. And she appears in the book because she is sharing her passion for weaving, which she fell into when she said, "I'm not buying that expensive, insane wall hanging that's hanging in a store. Let me try this for myself." And then she says in the book, and let me see if I can find it: "I will say that as I look around and I see myself and my peers getting older, we stop wanting to try things. We feel like we know everything, many of us, and we can become more closed as we get older. This is a tragedy. I want to stay open across my life. I want to keep experiencing life fully." And she shares many other smart thoughts, but that really spoke to me, because I think that is truly a key to sort of an ageless mindset—that we can continually grow and go and experience and iterate. And I feel like dabbling is something that's so core to that. Do you see any link between your desire to dabble and you're getting to midlife and your aging?
Karen Walrond 30:35
For sure. I mean, I think back to that young woman I mentioned at the top where she's so focused on her career that she forgot how to be interesting. I think the reason that that hits so hard is because it feels very familiar. And for those of us who have sort of hit midlife where potentially children are starting to leave the nest, and suddenly all of this focus on these beings that we've been raising, we get back some time. Maybe they go off to college, or maybe they move out or something, so we get back some time. So I think that for sure, dabbling for me has been very much about getting interested in myself again.
I think when we're 18, 19, when we're graduating high school, that's a time where we get really interested in ourselves. We go to college, or we figure out what we want to be when we grow up. And maybe we've started dating, and it's a time where you can sort of figure out, what is it that I love? What is it that I love to do? What is it that I want in my life? And I feel like midlife is sort of a natural return to that—that suddenly things that have consumed you, maybe we're also getting close to retirement, so these things—career, child-rearing and stuff—that may have consumed us now don't have to be the priority that they were. And so how are we going to fill our time again? And so dabbling allows us to do that. It's a way that we can do that.
The other thing that I think is really interesting about it that I've discovered is that there's this sort of idea, I think, in society that you hit midlife, particularly for women, but I think it's true for all genders, you become sort of irrelevant. That's the sort of messaging that we hear a lot. And I think that by dabbling, by doing this sort of inquiry into the things that we love, what we model for people who are coming up behind us is this sense of curiosity that I think most people think is the purview of the young. And it can be the purview of everyone. And we sort of model this continual zest for learning, this continual zest for creativity, this continual zest for evolution that I think is more natural to humans than not, regardless of what age you are. And I love the idea of intentionally doing this thing to model for the people coming behind us that that zest for learning and that evolution need never wane. It can continue to happen.
I will tell you, my mother, who's in her mid-80s, after she read this book, she told me, "You know, I think I'm going to return to piano again," which is something that I grew up hearing her play. She was the pianist—she's the reason I was a pianist. She was the pianist in our family. And she was like, "I think I'm going to get a tutor again"—in her 80s. And I love that, because I think if there's anything I want people to get from this, it's the fact that we have the power to create and curate joy in our lives, and that never wanes.
Katie Fogarty 33:50
And we can model it for our children. And to your point about what we are modeling for the generations coming behind us, about this sort of ever-growing, ever-blooming sense of approaching life with a perennial mindset—we can continue on and grow.
There was something in the book that really was interesting to me, and I truly have never thought about it. One chapter talks about self-esteem. And I think we all know what self-esteem is. As a parent, sometimes we work on trying to build that in our children. We want to give them a sense of self-esteem so that they can feel like they're sort of stewards of their own ship and that they have a sense of inner worth. But in that chapter, you're talking about also the notion of self-esteem in comparison to self-compassion. And I thought that was so interesting, because as a parent of three kids, I've read all these books about self-esteem and how you encourage it and cultivate it. But getting to midlife means we see things in new ways. And that, to me—I was thinking, you're encouraging people to have more self-compassion for themselves. To me, it feels like we should be modeling that for our children as well, perhaps over this notion of self-esteem. So could you walk our listeners through the exploration of these differences?
Karen Walrond 35:05
Yeah, so this is based on the research of Dr. Kristin Neff, who is a self-compassion researcher from the University of Texas, and she is also a practicing Buddhist, for what it's worth. And so what she says is that self-compassion can give you all of the benefits that self-esteem can—like confidence, like self-assurance—without the innate comparison that sometimes comes with self-esteem. So what she argues is that self-esteem tends to include as a subtext, "I am better than X." That I am achieving self-esteem because I am one of the better ones. That's part of it. Self-compassion, however, taps into the interconnectedness of the human condition. So it's not about weakness. You can still do healthy striving. You can still try really hard. You can still work really hard with self-compassion. But when things go wrong, self-compassion allows you to understand that that's just part of the human condition. Sometimes things are going to fail. Sometimes there will be suffering. But while it's totally natural to do that, I'm going to also extend a bit of kindness to myself. "Okay, that was hard. That didn't go the way I wanted it. Let me be kind to myself as I go forward and try again."
And that was really sort of revelatory to me. The first time I heard her speak about that—I actually didn't interview her for this book, but I had heard her speak—and that was interesting to me, because I think a lot of times people worry that being kind to themselves is a sign of weakness, that it means that it's letting yourself off the hook. But if you think about—let's talk about kids. If you think about your kids, if they fail... It's not like... When your child is trying something hard and they fail, you don't expect them to give up. You just expect them to be kind to themselves, to feel their feelings, to recover. And then what we want is resilience. We want, "Let's try again." "Let's just be gentle with ourselves and try again." And that's what self-compassion can allow us to do. And by building that sort of resilience, that sort of kindness, we necessarily also build confidence in ourselves and in our abilities—and our abilities to be kind to ourselves. And that's actually a more powerful thing to develop.
Katie Fogarty 37:42
100%. And this notion that self-esteem is sort of linked to ranking—"I'm doing a great job and I feel confident in myself"—you're ranking yourself against others. So you're either feeling, as you pointed out, perhaps superior—"I'm better than that person"—or you're feeling inferior—"I'm less than." I went to a sleepaway camp when I was young where one of their mottos was, "Comparison is the thief of joy." That was talked about a lot, and that's so true. And this notion of self-compassion, which is sort of standalone, it's for you and you only—to be compassionate about yourself and not be comparing yourself to others—I thought was such a powerful idea, and I loved learning about it and hearing more about it in the book.
And you're talking about, in terms of how do we apply that to dabbling, let's be compassionate to ourselves about trying new things, maybe being that kind of rank amateur and trying to make our way through. But we can apply this notion of self-compassion in our lives across all the ways that we interact—our parenting, our relationships, how we show up in the world. And I just thought it was a beautiful little standalone moment. So thank you for walking us through those differences.
For someone who's listening right now, who maybe is paralyzed by perfectionism, because I feel like I sometimes joke I'm a recovering perfectionist. I used to like to get gold stars and be a good student, and all those sort of external measures of validation that we sometimes experience when we're young. Sometimes we move away from them. Sometimes we don't. And I would say that people probably experience perfectionism in different areas. You may be fine in certain areas of your life where you're not doing that, you're not holding yourself to that exacting standard, but there are probably others where you are. So if somebody maybe has this urge to be creative, to dabble, but is a little anxious about moving forward, what's the smallest step you could recommend that they take to begin their dabbling practice?
Karen Walrond 39:41
Yeah, so let me first just start by saying that the reason that I came up with the Seven Attributes of Intentional Amateurism, which are curiosity, mindfulness, stretching your comfort zone, play, connection... What is another one? Did I say self-compassion already? Wonder and awe. I know I'm forgetting...
Katie Fogarty 40:02
But Karen, the midlife brain fog is real, but people are going to buy the book and they're going to get all seven.
Karen Walrond 40:09
You'll get all seven. Exactly. But the reason that I created those is because I was afraid of falling into perfectionism. And so what I would suggest is think about which of those things—the calm, the play, whatever it is that you wish more for your life. "I wish I had more calm." Mindfulness, I think, is the one that I missed. But like, what are the things that you want more of? And then an activity that you can try that will allow you to practice that—that maybe you've always been interested in doing.
Now, I will say, every single time I've done any one of those things, any one of the things I did, for the Seven, others came in. We'll use pottery. So pottery, obviously, mindfulness is really important, because you have to pay attention, or the lump of clay will go flying off the wheel. So you have to focus on what's happening in front of you. There's definitely the curiosity: "What happens if I change something that I'm doing?" There's definitely the self-compassion, because, as I said, it can be an exercise in disappointment as things fall apart. So you have to be able to practice self-compassion. But it's also wonder and awe. Whenever I'm in the pottery, I think about the fact that people have been creating ceramics for literal centuries—for millennia. Archaeologists use pottery as signs of civilization. So I think about the fact that I'm now a part of this tradition that connects me with these people before, generations before, and generations after. Wonder.
In the book I do astrophotography to experience wonder and awe of being in nature and looking at the stars. So if you can find the thing you love that can allow you to attach to one of those things, I think that perfectionism starts to fall away. Because remember, you're doing this for you. You're not doing it for other people. You're not getting paid for this. So when you can focus on that sort of curiosity about yourself, the mindfulness of what you're doing, the wonder and awe that's inherent in whatever it is—the run through the woods or the mountain biking or whatever it is that you're doing—then perfectionism doesn't even come into the equation. Because it's not about ranking yourself against other people.
I will tell you, when I took that pottery class, I took it a year ago, and the people who were in the class with me have gone on to, almost to a person, far bigger and better things than I am currently capable of doing. I tell people all the time, I'm not a natural potter, but I am definitely becoming a skilled potter. And I could sit there and I could compare myself to these other people, and again, my joy would be thieved—to your words—my joy would be stolen from me if I did that. But I'm so focused on the curiosity, the mindfulness, it doesn't even occur to me to compare myself with other people, because the joy for me is in the exploration of myself and of this craft that I've decided is the focus of my intentional amateurism.
Katie Fogarty 43:14
And Karen, I know from reading your acknowledgments in this book that you thank your pottery teacher. And you said, "I will be moving on to make a vase next." So you are continuing to embrace and throw your arms literally around this and see that there's still opportunity to grow and to have new experiences within it. Because I think sometimes—
Karen Walrond 43:34
Absolutely.
Katie Fogarty 43:34
I find that with my own—I play racket sports, and I don't know if you've ever played tennis or anything, but they're so fun and so frustrating, because some days it's working and some days it's not. And I think it's the push and the pull that keeps it exciting, and that when we, quote-unquote, "master" something, sometimes it loses its allure. Half of the enjoyment is the unexpected moments of growth or success or "What can come next?" or "I'm intrigued about getting better." It's that kind of drive that keeps it exciting.
So my final question for you is: What are you going to dabble in next? Do you have something on your vision board?
Karen Walrond 44:22
There are things that I'm interested in right now. It's a funny question to ask me, because I'm in the throes of a book tour, so I'm so focused on that. I'm like, if I could just get to the pottery, I'm really thrilled to do that. I'm always interested in some sort of art form, because my background is in engineering and law, and I was always very analytical. So the idea of playing with creative things is really interesting to me. Jen Romolini, you mentioned her weaving—that's something that I'm really interested in trying to learn as well. I used to do—I think we used to call it macramé back in the '70s. Do you remember that?
Katie Fogarty 45:00
Yes.
Karen Walrond 45:00
I would love to sort of go back to that. I think so. Maybe something like that would be next.
Katie Fogarty 45:09
Well, I'm going to dabble in boxing, because it's been on my—
Karen Walrond 45:13
Yes!
Katie Fogarty 45:13
It's been on my list.
Karen Walrond That's amazing.
Katie Fogarty I interviewed a wonderful woman named Mimi Ison, who uses the social media handle @heymiddleage, and she's been boxing for years, and I've been watching her from afar with a great sense of curiosity. And when I moved to New York a few weeks ago and said goodbye to my beloved yoga studio, I decided, rather than feeling like it was a loss, I thought, "It's an opportunity to do something new." So boxing is on my list, and your book is really encouraging me to make that first appointment and get in there and do it.
Karen Walrond 45:47
You need to also follow Mary Jane Fahey. You know her? @gloriousbroads?
Katie Fogarty 45:51
Yes.
Karen Walrond 45:51
She's 70, and she's just started boxing, and she's been recording it on Instagram. So you also need to follow her for inspiration.
Katie Fogarty 45:59
I'm not missing that, because I love her, and I've interviewed her on the show, and she's fantastic. So I may hit her up for her studios.
Karen Walrond 46:05
Yeah, there you go. She's not too far from me.
Katie Fogarty 46:08
Well, speaking of New York, I know that you are going to be here. Before we wrap up and say goodbye, I want to have listeners know where they can follow you in your work. But I also want you to tell them you're coming to New York for two events this fall. Let our listeners know where they can join you and join us and hear about your wonderful work live.
Karen Walrond 46:29
Exactly. So well, the first place: I will be in New York on October 14, on Tuesday. I'm going to be at Word Up Bookstore, which is, I believe, in Washington Heights. And so that's one of the stops on my tour. And then the next day, I'm going to be seeing you.
Katie Fogarty 46:47
Yes, Karen is joining us at the Let's Talk Menopause and Caire Beauty's annual event. It's called The Marvelous Mrs. Menopause. It's an evening of connection and community and cocktails. It's an evening about telling midlife stories. It's an evening about talking about women's health, whole-life health, menopause in particular. It's a phenomenal night. Karen's going to be on a panel that's called "Midlife Unmuted," and it's spotlighting the stories, voices, and just zest and energy of midlife women. So it is a do-not-miss. We'll put information into the show notes so people can join us. But where can listeners follow you specifically so they can learn more about your work?
Karen Walrond 47:28
Well, probably the easiest place is just to go to KarenWalrond.com, my name, and that will take you everywhere. It takes you to my Substack, which I send out newsletters weekly. It tells you how to get the books, both this one and my previous book. So that's probably the easiest place.
Katie Fogarty 47:45
Phenomenal. This has been In Defense of Dabbling: The Brilliance of Being a Total Amateur. I so loved diving into this latest book. Karen, thank you for being with me today.
Karen Walrond 47:53
Always, always such a pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Katie Fogarty 47:57
This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women who are aging without apology. What a treat to welcome Karen back to the show. Her books are so illuminating, so fun to read. She was first on A Certain Age to talk about her book, Radiant Rebellion. You can find that show over on our website at acertainagepod.com. It's about aging with zest and vibrancy and really throwing your arms around this stage of life. And I absolutely adored exploring the ideas of hobbies, amateurism, lighting ourselves up by trying new things and reading her latest book, In Defense of Dabbling. I think you should add both books to your shelf. They are going to change your life and light you up.
Thanks for joining me today. Thanks for joining me every week. Special thanks to everybody who's taken time to write an Apple Podcasts or Spotify review. I see and appreciate each one. Reviews help other listeners find the show, learn that it's worth spending time with. So I truly appreciate it when you take time to let me know how much you enjoy the show and what you're taking away from it. Special thanks to Michael Mancini, who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time and, until then, age boldly, beauties.