I’m writing this post at a particularly low point in my journey of mastering… something. The tension I’m feeling is best summed up with the following quote from Jordan Peterson:
You have to have a vision for your life. Because if you don’t, you’re just a pawn in someone else’s game.
The plan should be simple: put the kids to bed, walk into the garage, pick up my guitar and really have a proper go at learning it, this time. I’ve got everything ready – my warmup, my root note training app and a transcript of the song I want to learn. But I’m also sat here at my gaming computer; the same one from which I have so many wonderful memories of playing video games late into the night, chatting and killing bosses with friends and guildmates.
And what if guitar doesn’t work out? I’m only a beginner. I could quit now and nobody would know. Guitar is tough as well; if my hands aren’t aching from gripping a bit too tightly then my fingertips are going to be sore instead. And what’s it all for? I want the feeling of playing to a live audience. I did it one time when I was 17 years old, and it was energising. But what if I don’t enjoy doing it again?
Also, doesn’t it make more sense to focus on my career? I work in IT and enjoy managing a team but I know there are so many areas of technology I could be studying to increase my worth. Networking (I have the Cisco CCNA study materials on a shelf behind me), Azure or even general cybersecurity principles would surely be a good use of my time.
Man this stuff is hard. I went to look for an image to put on this post (to make it more like a proper blog…) and came across this one:
It might not be the answer I’m looking for, but it certainly puts my ‘problems’ into perspective. If I can’t really put the effort into something (whatever that may be) then I’ll be living with regrets for the rest of my life.
I’m only 7 days into really giving this electric guitar stuff a proper go and I can’t shake the feeling that it might all be for nothing. But there are good tactics out there and, thanks to AI, they’re ready available. I’ve had a bit of success on Instagram before (growing a hobbyist American BBQ page to 6,000 followers in around 3 months) and feel like I need to start utilising that to build community and social engagement, for my own sanity. I’ve sort of promised myself a brand new guitar if I can put in 100 hours of guitar practice but some cool short-term goals for Instagram that I came up with are:
- 30 days of daily posts with consistent posting times
- Weekly progress compilation reels
- Engage with 5 other learners daily
I’m learning guitar, and that’s cool.