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Cake day: September 7th, 2023

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  • Eh, I used to feel like that when I was younger. I was a pretty solid bassist, and was good enough that the people I played with at least considered me the best player they knew. It was my thing. It was what I did.

    Of course, that meant I’d get all insecure and threatened when someone else claimed to be good at doing what I did. That meant I’d want to show off, because, no, no. This is my thing. This is what I do.

    It’s not a good way to be. Maybe don’t be like that if you can avoid it.

    It also meant I started stagnating, 'cause I didn’t think I had anything left to learn. I wasn’t good enough to be inventive, but I didn’t want to accept that I wasn’t good enough to be inventive. So, I just got frustrated and bored, and I started losing interest.

    After a while, I came across Thundercat, and got a bit humbled. Then, I came across Charles Berthoud and some other YouTube bassists, and got even more humbled.

    It was awesome! I was finally reminded that there was so much more to learn, and so much more room for me to grow at the thing I loved. I may never be good enough to innovate or invent a technique of my own, but so what? Being the best seems so frustrating and boring. Screw that.

    As long as there’s someone better than me at the thing I love, then I know there’s more for me to learn, and learning is way more satisfying.

    (But don’t lose the sense of healthy competition. Few things help you grow better than a good rivalry)















  • Rewatching Community for like the 5th time, and I love Abed- especially how the show makes it clear he’s not always the easiest to deal with, and not just some freakishly-smart supergenius who’s always two steps ahead of everyone. He seems smart because he can read patterns in peoples’ behavior, but he’s otherwise just as human and imperfect as any of the others.

    He’s shown to have a lot of insecurity about the gang sticking around, and expects them to eventually give up and abandon him because everyone gets sick of putting up with his quirks eventually. They never do, of course, but it’s something I relate to a lot. It sucks to deal with, but it’s nice to have a character to relate that to.