On another note I really liked "How to Be Idle" by Tom Hodgkinson https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/623922.How_to_Be_Idle In case you get some guilt feelings.
To my limited knowledge, "Don't try" is to say do something that you don't need effort to start doing, something that doesn't feel like a chore to you, something that you are passionate about.
He also mentioned going hungry a lot for his passion.
I don't think that someone who perseveres through all that is a slacker, but again, my understanding is limited.
So he was motivated, but not by work or the concerns of others. The only reason we know about him is because he chose to write and often semi-autobiographically. There are scores of people who make similar arrangements for music, sport, reading, gardening, child rearing… we just don’t hear from them!