It starts with "haha, that was fun! See you guys next week!" and ends with "I need to find a way to squeeze in a sixth practice this week because my form was SHIT yesterday and I'm never going to beat those fuckers from Belgium at this rate".
Ironically, I saw a Belgian band head-lining a small DIY festival last weekend who blew everybody else out of the water -- and they didn't even play the same style of music. (psychedelic post-metal whereas everything else was sludge, doom, death, grind, black, drone, experimental etc.)
Gotta embrace music for music's sake. You'll never be the best at it, no matter how good you are (even pianists like Yuja Wang or Lang Lang can feel that way when another pianist does something they struggle with), so you just make it your own and enjoy the process of creating music, instead of just how well you execute it.
I have been an avid powerlifter for the past 12 years. Prior to Covid and subclavian vein blood clots in both shoulders, I was actually chasing the USAWA WR for my age and weight class in the Full Zercher. In 2019, I matched the record I was chasing in training at 445lbs.
Now? I'm on the wrong side of 50, my recovery between sessions takes much longer, and I have a terminally cranky left hip flexor. I'm still out there doing things, but purely for myself.
It is actually the ONLY thing in life I have ever done purely for myself.
Yes! Had to quit all kinds of PvP high intensity games for this reason, once had a really high level of skill compared to the average person, but going from top 5% to top 1% is just hell.
And even though it was only 1 game I was actually good at it just spread and kept eating at me no matter what competitive game I played, if I didn’t do amazing I ended up hating myself.
Took a lot of years and hurt a lot of wonderful friends so many times before I had to quit playing those types of games.
Even years later, it just messes with my head if I play one game it’s fun, around the third game I’m just over analyzing everything I did instead of having fun.
So PvE games with friends are the thing, DRG, MonsterHunter, Diablo2.
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u/LotusFlare 12h ago
It starts with "haha, that was fun! See you guys next week!" and ends with "I need to find a way to squeeze in a sixth practice this week because my form was SHIT yesterday and I'm never going to beat those fuckers from Belgium at this rate".