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This is particularly difficult with social media, as platforms will show users content from those who are not just an outlier, but literally one in a million (o
by ve55 5y ago
This is particularly difficult with social media, as platforms will show users content from those who are not just an outlier, but literally one in a million (or billion) in terms of how successful or lucky they are.
There will always be someone on Youtube that is better than you will ever be at your favorite game, instrument, or craft. The three best ways of dealing with this that I have found are firstly to realize that your value as a person is not defined by your skill in a single specialized area, but by a combination of a plethora of unique traits, secondly to realize that being the 'best' or most notable at something is not equivalent to happiness nor a good life, and lastly to realize that even if you do wish to dedicate your life to specializing in a single skill, it's unlikely you have to privilige/genes/luck/etc to be the best human in the world at it. It also reminds me of a post I've seen on HN a few times that discusses being the best at a combination of things unique to you, rather than a single generic thing, which is generally impossible, which is very relevant here too.
- silvereye 5y agoWhy even try to be "the best at a combination of things unique to you"? It sounds like those headlines which try to shoehorn "the best in the world" followed by enough qualifier to make the statement true. I think it's enough to recognize you can appreciate a skill at any level. Even when you completely suck at something you can still enjoy doing it.
- howaboutnope 5y ago"The forest would be pretty quiet if only the best birds sang." I suck at singing, but still love it, and when I sing, I get a totally different kind of joy than I get from listening to someone else sing well.
- munificent 5y agoI am now envisioning a forest filled with birdsong... and one dude belting out an offkey version of "More Than a Feeling". I love it.
- WalterBright 5y agoStevie Nicks is a "bad" singer by most metrics, but her albums sell very very well, and I enjoy them, too. (When her singing debuted, music critics dismissed her voice as raspy and unpleasant.)
- Noos 5y agoPeople don't seem to mind when it comes to sports. When was the last time you played baseball or football? People don't also seem to care that average people sing songs, make movies, write books, etc. Why, when we have an endless amount of people making high quality goods well above what they could do? We end up with what we have now, a producer and consumer culture. You can't make an economy that optimizes for the best and has all the birds in the forest sing, too.
- circlefavshape 5y agoErm ... I don't know how you missed this, but millions of people sing songs and play sports just for fun
- Noos 5y ago...no, nowhere as much as you think. If you think so, go out and try to find it. In the USA, most people only do sport in high school, and after those that do are usually on some kind of professional track. There are a few exceptions, like golf, but it was nothing like when I was a kid. Singing, nah; again, things like Christmas caroling or teaching music in lower grades have declined massively.
- circlefavshape 5y agoerm ... this probably depends on where you live, and on your cultural milieu, but a great many of my friends are amateur musicians (or members of choirs (or art groups))
- ZephyrBlu 5y agoI like to take pride in being good at things that I do. Some things I just do for fun and don't care, but I'm quite competitive so a lot of the time my enjoyment comes from getting/being good at something.