> Because of this, a perception can be created that all of one's peers are achieving either success or controversy, with one's own personal career ending up bec

> Because of this, a perception can be created that all of one's peers are achieving either success or controversy, with one's own personal career ending up becoming the only known source of examples of "mundane" failure. I've found similar insights when I joined a community of musicians and also discovered twitch / youtube presences of musicians I listen to. Some of Dragonforces corona streams are absolutely worth a watch. It's easy to listen to mixed and finished albums and... despair to a degree. How could anyone learn to become that good? It must be impossible, giving up seems the only rational choice. But in reality, people struggle and fumble along at their level. Sure enough, the level of someone playing guitar professionally for 20 years is a tad higher than mine, but that really, really perfect album take? That's the one take out of a couple dozen. This really helped me "ground" or "calibrate" my sense of how good or how bad I am and gave me a better appreciation of how much of a marathon an instrument can be.