Haha, all this is fairly overwhelming, thanks to everyone for the suggestions and offered help!
I think I've got a few ideas to run with for the next few months. Also my friend's brother teaches music and we've just talked about him giving me a few lessons for pointers, I think it'll help that the teacher is someone I know!
I'll report back with progress at some point, just getting support from you all has already improved my motivation
I think at least having some conversations and getting some pointers from a musical professional you trust is very important. Teaching yourself to play is possible if you're totally fascinated by music, as I was when I was younger. It's not as realistic when you are older; especially if you lack the intrinsic motivation necessary to drive you forward.
One big problem with trying to teach yourself to play when you lack that strong internal drive, is you do not have any real perspective in which to determine whether you are progressing at a suitable rate, or if you have any natural ability. Also you really don't have any way to build a lesson plan that can help you assemble all of the necessary building blocks needed to efficiently learn to play an instrument and understand music.
Keep in mind that success can mean a lot of different things. You may be happy thumping out a few simple tunes by ear, or you may want to eventually be able to understand music on a level that allows you to read notation and chord symbols and improvise an original bass line on the spot.
The way you think and organize information will have a huge influence on the skills and abilities you eventually develop. In my experience classical musicians tend think very differently from jazz musicians. I am sort of a weird chimera that does both fairly well, but mastered neither. Most people tend to take one path or other and specialize. My job required the majority of it's musicians to play in both classical and jazz genre. In general I played jazz significantly better than the classical specialist and classical significantly better than the jazz specialist. But most of my peers were better than me within their area of specialization. I also played commercial music: pop, rock, country, funk, soul, etc, and I have observed the same type of specialization among commercial musicians. I.E. some play strictly note for note, and some are more comfortable improvising and playing more freely.
To me both areas of specialization make sense, but for someone who specializes, the knowledge and aptitude area opposite of their specialty tends to be a strange and confusing place. Most classical musicians would be totally confused if you asked them to improvise a solo, even though they were taught much of the theory necessary. Classical musicians improvise in other ways though. The tend to have fabulous tone and phrasing and may be able to interpret and play a written melody so expressively that it brings tears to your eyes. In contrast, IMHO most jazzers have awful tone and phrasing in comparison.
I guess the point is you may not have total control of what you are able to become because some of it is tied to the way you think.
Unless you plan to become a professional musician, which seems a bit silly given your background, the most important thing is simply to try and find joy in playing an instrument. Ultimately if you don't find joy in playing I would suggest not going through the motions. Find another hobby that holds your interest.
The way to 'learn' music is simply to 'make' music. Once you know how it works, you can play it with other ethical humans, and the playing skills displayed in playing will look exactly like 'talent'. Find a couple of other players that are willing to work with you for mutual benefit. Despite what you may have read in the newspapers, Music is for the most part not an 'individual sport' ...
